The ratio of We’s to I’s is the best indicator of the development of a team.
– Lewis B. Ergen

Target Audience

Des Moines University faculty and staff.

What is TeamSTEPPS?

Teamwork truly is all around us. Patients across the world are safer in healthcare delivery systems where teamwork principles are practiced on a daily basis. TeamSTEPPS focuses on specific skills supporting team performance principles, including training requirement, behavioral methods, human factors, and cultural change designed to improve quality and patient safety.

Teamwork concepts are introduced that provide specific tools and strategies for improving communication and teamwork, reducing chance of error, and providing safer patient care.

TeamSTEPPS is composed of four teachable-learnable skills:

• Leadership – how to direct and coordinate, assign tasks, motivate team members, facilitate optimal performance.
• Situation monitoring – how to develop common understandings of team environment, apply strategies to monitor teammate performance and maintain a shared mental model.
• Mutual support – how to anticipate other team members’ needs through accurate knowledge and shift workload to achieve balance during periods of high workload or stress.
• Communication – how to effectively exchange information among team members, regardless of how it is communicated.

The red arrows depict a two-way dynamic interplay between the four skills and the team-related outcomes. Interaction between the outcomes and skills is the basis of a team striving to deliver safe, quality care. Encircling the four skills is the patient care team which not only represents the patient and direct caregivers, but those who play a supportive role within the healthcare delivery system.

Team competencies required for a high-performance team, can be grouped in into the categories of Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes (KSAs). Team-related knowledge results in a shared mental model; attitudes result in mutual trust and team orientation. Adaptability, accuracy, productivity, efficiency and safety are the outcome of a high-performing team.

Facilitator

Teri Stumbo, PT
Associate dean – College of Health Sciences, Des Moines University

Resources

• TeamSTEPPS homepag