TeamSTEPPS®

Mission

TeamSTEPPS (Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety) is a teamwork system designed for health care professionals to improve communication and teamwork skills. It is a source for ready-to-use materials and a training curriculum to successfully integrate teamwork principles into all areas of your health care system. The system is scientifically rooted in more than 20 years of research and lessons from the application of teamwork principles. TeamSTEPPS was developed by Department of Defense's Patient Safety Program in collaboration with AHRQ.

Visit the TeamSTEPPS Web site.

Relevance

TeamSTEPPS provides higher quality, safer patient care by:

• Producing highly effective medical teams that optimize the use of information, people, and resources to achieve the best clinical outcomes for patients.
• Increasing team awareness and clarifying team roles and responsibilities.
• Resolving conflicts and improving information sharing.
• Eliminating barriers to quality and safety.

Products

TeamSTEPPS materials are available both online and in print format. TeamSTEPPS is presented in a multimedia format, with tools to help your health care organization plan, conduct, and evaluate its own team training program. The core curriculum includes an instructor guide, videos, a pocket guide, and PowerPoint® presentations.

Additional materials include the following:

• TeamSTEPPS Rapid Response Systems (RRS) Training Module
• Enhancing Safety for Patients With Limited English Proficiency Module
• TeamSTEPPS Long-Term Care Version
• Training Guide: Using Simulation in TeamSTEPPS Training
• TeamSTEPPS Leadership Briefing Slides
• TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Perception Questionnaire (T-TPQ)
• TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Attitudes Questionnaire (T-TAQ)

Audiences

TeamSTEPPS is designed for frontline providers in hospitals and other health care settings throughout the country.

Partners

AHRQ and the Defense Department have teamed to build a national training and support network called the National Implementation of TeamSTEPPS Project. At the core of the national implementation are five regional training centers at (from East to West):

• North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System in New Hyde Park, New York (NSLIJ)
• Duke Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina (Duke)
• Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana (Tulane)
• University of Minnesota Fairview Medical Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota (UM)
• University of Washington Medicine, Seattle, Washington (UW)