Staff acceptance of video monitoring for coordination: a video system to support perioperative situation awareness

Aim.  To understand staff acceptance of a remote video monitoring system for operating room (OR) coordination. Background.  Improved real‐time remote visual access to OR may enhance situational awareness but also raises privacy concerns for patients and staff. Design.  Survey. Methods.  A system was implemented in a six‐room surgical suite to display OR monitoring video at an access restricted control desk area. Image quality was manipulated to improve staff acceptance. Two months after installation, interviews and a survey were conducted on staff acceptance of video monitoring. Results.  About half of all OR personnel responded ( n  = 63). Overall levels of concerns were low, with 53% rated no concerns and 42% little concern. Top two reported uses of the video were to see if cases are finished and to see if a room is ready. Viewing the video monitoring system as useful did not reduce levels of concern. Staff in supervisory positions perceived less concern about the system’s impact on privacy than did those supervised ( p  < 0·03). Concerns for patient privacy correlated with concerns for staff privacy and performance monitoring. Technical means such as manipulating image quality helped staff acceptance. Conclusions.  Manipulation of image quality resulted overall acceptance of monitoring video, with residual levels of concerns. OR nurses may express staff privacy concern in the form of concerns over patient privacy. Relevance to clinical practice.  This study provided suggestions for technological and implementation strategies of video monitoring for coordination use in OR. Deployment of communication technology and integration of clinical information will likely raise concerns over staff privacy and performance monitoring. The potential gain of increased information access may be offset by negative impact of a sense of loss of autonomy.