Incorporating TeamSTEPPS training to improve staff collaboration in an academic level I emergency and trauma center

Seamless communication and coordinated teamwork is paramount in high stakes clinical practice settings, such as the emergency department (ED), to prevent medical errors and ensure high quality patient care delivery. Ineffective communication in this fast-paced environment can be detrimental for patient outcomes and staff collaboration.

The purpose of this project was to evaluate the effect of TeamSTEPPS® training (Team strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety), an evidenced based communication-training toolkit, on staff perception of teamwork and communication in an academic Level I Emergency and Trauma Center.

A prospective, single group, pre-post design with a convenience sample was employed. The sample consisted of thirty-five clinical staff members, including registered nurses (RNs) and patient care technicians (PCTs), recruited from an academic Level I Emergency and Trauma Center. A pre-intervention T-TPQ (TeamSTEPPS® teamwork and Perceptions Questionnaire) measuring staff perception of teamwork and collaboration was administered followed by a one-hour TeamSTEPPS® education session from freely-available published materials. Three weeks later, a post-intervention T-TPQ was administered. A paired samples t-test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to analyze changes in scores from pre-post-test for outcome measures.

23 females and 12 males with a mean age of 30 years and 9 years of experience participated. T-TPQ scores showed a mean of 121.4 pre-training and mean of 128.2 after training. Paired t-test demonstrated overall pre-intervention (mean = 3.52, SD ± 0.5) and post-intervention (mean = 3.78, SD = 0.4) scores were significantly improved overall (-0.29 to -0.13, p < 0.001).

TeamSTEPPS® was an effective communication collaboration program to improve teamwork and communication perceptions in the ED suggesting that an evidence-based multifaceted, multimedia instructional toolkit may promote a collaborative culture of effective communication and teamwork. Long term effects of TeamSTEPPS® training in the ED requires further study.