TeamSTEPPS: Assuring Optimal Teamwork in Clinical Settings

delivery of health care in virtually every setting, effective teamwork is not a given but a goal that requires training and cultivation. Paul M. Schyve, MD, senior vice president of The Joint Commission (formerly JCAHO, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations), has observed, “Our challenge . . . is not whether we will deliver care in teams but rather how well we will deliver care in teams.” In a recent article, Frankel and colleagues noted, “Currently, we can assure our patients that their care is always provided by a team of experts, but we cannot assure our patients that their care is always provided by expert teams.” For more than 20 years, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has collaborated with the Department of Defense (DoD), which encompasses one of the largest health care delivery systems in the world, to explore the field of medical teamwork. Recently, the 2 agencies announced the availability of an outstanding new resource for training health care providers in better teamwork practices: TeamSTEPPS, which stands for Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety. The new training package capitalizes on the DoD’s expertise in medical and nonmedical team performance and AHRQ’s extensive research in the fields of patient safety and health care quality. Following extensive field testing in the military health system (MHS) and several civilian organizations, a multimedia TeamSTEPPS toolkit was recently made available, via the public domain, to civilian health care facilities and medical practices. (Details on how to obtain the toolkit appear at the conclusion of this commentary.)