Eliciting context-mechanism-outcome configurations: Experiences from a realist evaluation investigating the impact of robotic surgery on teamwork in the operating theatre

This article recounts our experience of eliciting, cataloguing and prioritizing conjectured Context-Mechanism-Outcome configurations at the outset of a realist evaluation, to provide new insight into how Context-Mechanism-Outcome configurations can be generated and theorized. Our construction of Context-Mechanism-Outcome configurations centred on how, why and in what circumstances teamwork was impacted by robotic surgery, rather than how and why this technology improved surgical outcomes as intended. We found that, as well as offering resources, robotic surgery took away resources from the theatre team, by physically reconfiguring the operating theatre and redistributing the surgical task load, essentially changing the context in which teamwork was performed. We constructed Context-Mechanism-Outcome configurations that explain how teamwork mechanisms were both constrained by the contextual changes, and triggered in the new context through the use of informal strategies. We conclude by reflecting on our application of realist evaluation to understand the potential impacts of robotic surgery on teamwork.