Hospitals ‘Step’ it up

TeamSTEPPS program helps N.D. hospitals focus on communication

By KATINA TENGESDAL, Staff Writer, ktengesdal@minotdailynews.com

Fifteen North Dakota hospitals recently attended a specialized team training session in Bismarck for the TeamSTEPPS program, which is focused on improving health-care professionals' communication skills in an effort to ensure even safer patient care.

"TeamSTEPPS is about patient safety. If you integrate these communication and teamwork principles in your health-care system, you're providing an atmosphere of patient safety," said Jody Ward, quality improvement network coordinator at the UND Center for Rural Health in Minot.

The TeamSTEPPS training was sponsored by the Center for Rural Health, the North Dakota Health Care Review and the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The training, a nationally recognized teamwork curriculum, was developed by AHRQ and the Department of Defense.

Jean Roland, health-care quality improvement project coordinator for North Dakota Health Care Review, said TeamSTEPPS training brings together many communications skills, and makes it easier for medical personnel to teach teams within their facility the concepts and application of those skills.

"We hope that this training will impact the quality of care that patients receive, and ultimately impact the safety issues that surround medical care," Roland said.

Communication is key to bringing health-care professionals together to prevent errors. TeamSTEPPS training involves three to five individuals from each medical facility, who will then be equipped to spread their knowledge to teams at their facility.

"You spread it amongst your facility from the bottom level to the top, so everybody's speaking the same language. For medical errors happening on the floor, for example, it allows the nurse aide to speak up and say, 'I'm concerned, I'm uncomfortable, this could be a safety issue. Let's stop the line,'" Ward said.

"We want them to have a blame-free atmosphere to do this. As everybody learns and teaches these skills, we're able to communicate so we have the best clinical outcomes for the patient," she added.

The training teaches communications tools that could benefit doctors, nurses, pharmacists, therapists and administrative staff who interact on a daily basis in fast-paced conditions.

TeamSTEPPS, an evidence-based program, was created from research relative to the science of teamwork and human factors and team performance along with organization improvement and change strategies.

Facilities that participated in the training included Altru Clinic-Lake Region and Mercy Hospital, Devils Lake; Tioga Medical Center; Garrison Memorial Hospital; Sakakawea Medical Center, Hazen; Medcenter One, Bismarck; Heart of America Medical Center, Rugby; Trinity Kenmare Community Hospital; Innovis Health, Fargo; Cooperstown Medical Center; Wishek Community Hospital; Presentation Medical Center, Rolla; Southwest Healthcare Services, Bowman; North Dakota Health Care Review, Minot; St. Andrews Health Center, Bottineau; Jacobson Memorial Hospital, Elgin; Altru Health System and the UND Center for Rural Health, Grand Forks.