Patient Safety Tip of the Week
May 22, 2007
More on TeamSTEPPS™
Last week, in our
discussion on cockpit resource management and teamwork training, we noted the TeamSTEPPS™ program as a good
resource. It is a team training program developed by the Department of Defense
(DoD) in collaboration with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
(AHRQ).
This week we had a
first-hand opportunity to see the program and its potential. TeamSTEPPS™ was
presented at the New York State Department of Health’s annual Patient Safety
Conference in Albany, cosponsored by HANYS and GNYHA. Heidi King, the Deputy
Director for the Department of Defense Patient Safety Program, provided an
overview of development of the program. Key experts in teamwork from multiple
fields came together and used evidence-based and research-grounded principles
to develop the tools needed for teamwork training. This program and the tools
have now been rolled out in multiple healthcare settings and applied to
multiple subsites and patient populations and multiple different teams. The
program comes with recommended rollout and implementation strategies but is eminently
customizable to any organization. The program is continuously updated. Tools
for outcomes measurement are also available.
Best yet, the
tools are available for free! The TeamSTEPPS™ resources include presentation
modules, great videos of bad and good team interactions and communications,
implementation and action planning tools, evaluation tools, a pocket guide and
posters. Many of the resources are available online and others are provided on
CD/DVD’s. Topics covered include developing teams, use of briefs, brief
checklists, huddles, debriefing, situation monitoring, cross monitoring, SBAR,
handoffs, and others.
We highly
recommend this program. It can be implemented at the individual unit level or overall
organizational level. It has even been used as a community-wide collaborative
effort. Programs like this should be part of the core curriculum for medical
schools, nursing schools, and other healthcare professional schools. It clearly
demonstrates the importance of multidisciplinary interaction and team skills
that are necessary for the delivery of safe, effective care.
Learn more about
the program by going to the TeamSTEPPS™ web page at AHRQ or the Department of
Defense Patient Safety website.
.
http://www.patientsafetysolutions.com
Patient
Safety Tip of the Week Archive
What’s New in the Patient Safety World Archive