Purpose: To create a large-scale longitudinal interprofessional TeamSTEPPS® curriculum incorporating simulation.
Background: TeamSTEPPS®, developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Department of Defense, is an evidence-based framework for enhancing teamwork and communication skills to reduce medical errors and improve patient safety.
Description of Intervention or Program: Throughout two years, faculty and staff at an urban health sciences university piloted TeamSTEPPS® programs with 124 interprofessional students involving didactic, simulation, debriefing and reflection components. Coordinators developed patient cases and student and facilitator guidelines, allowing for facilitated role play to apply the skills learned. A modified version of this program was then piloted with 240 medical students to test the ability to scale it up while maintaining the integrity of the learning objectives. Previously-trained medical students served as co-facilitators.
Results: The average scores for evaluation items related to the extent to which students acquired specific communication and teamwork skills were consistently high for all workshops. Ninety-eight percent of all interprofessional respondents agreed or strongly agreed that their notions of the roles of other professionals improved as a result of the workshop. Eighty percent of all medical students recommended repeating the workshop the following year. Unsolicited, 18% of medical school respondents indicated the training would be more valuable if conducted interprofessionally.
Conclusion: Given positive results and the desire to conduct the training interprofessionally, an interprofessional longitudinal TeamSTEPPS® curriculum involving simulation is being developed. Medical, nursing, pharmacy and physician assistant students (~520) will be included in the first year. A train-the-trainer approach will be employed, adding clinical/patient/client complexity for more advanced students.
Relevance to Interprofessional Education or Practice: At a time when an estimated 100,000 hospitalized patients die yearly due to medical errors (Institute of Medicine, 1999) and two thirds of sentinel events originate from poor communication (The Joint Commission, 2007), students must be equipped with tools to help them support interprofessional team members in delivering safe, patient-centered care once in practice.
Seminar outline/timeframe of presentation and interactive discussion: 3 minutes: Introductions 22 minutes: Project overview and brief TeamSTEPPS® didactic presentation with videos 5 minutes: Break into small groups and prep volunteer patients and care team members 15 minutes: Simulation in small groups 5 minutes: Small group debrief 10 minutes: Whole group debrief and lessons learned 5 minutes: Wrap-up and evaluation
Two or three measureable learning objectives relevant to the conference goals: Identify the benefits and challenges of implementing TeamSTEPPS® on a large scale with multiple professions Describe methods for implementing effective interprofessional TeamSTEPPS® training curricula Explain the value of role play/simulation in helping students apply TeamSTEPPS® skills
Citations: The Institute of Medicine (IOM). (1999) To err is human: Building a safer health system. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. The Joint Commission (JCAHO). (2007). Improving America’s hospitals: the Joint Commission’s annual report on quality and safety. The Joint Commission. Retrieved from http://www.jointcommission.org/assets /1/6/2007_Annual _Report.pdf
