Research Medical Center Develops Video to Encourage Continued Use of TeamSTEPPS®

The Graduate Nurse Residency Program at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri, created a video highlighting nine concepts of AHRQ's TeamSTEPPS® program as a way to re-energize the hospital's ongoing patient safety training program.

TeamSTEPPS is an evidence-based system developed by AHRQ and the Department of Defense to improve teamwork skills among health care professionals. The 511-bed Research Medical Center introduced the program in 2010, but sustainability—keeping tools and strategies fresh amid staff turnover—had become a challenge.

"We have metrics and data to show that we are a TeamSTEPPS facility, but the survey that the graduate nurse residents completed showed that most registered nurses who work the floor had poor knowledge of the concepts," said Laura Hyland, R.N., nurse supervisor and coordinator of the Graduate Nurse Residency Program.

Essentially, the TeamSTEPPS effort had lapsed at the facility.

Ms. Hyland's idea for a video highlighting important components of the safety program followed after she attended a national TeamSTEPPS conference in early 2014. The message from the conference, she said, was "to pick what works for your facility; you don't have to do it all."

Research shows the quality of patient care improves when health care team members collaborate to share their unique patient care perspectives. Leaders of Research Medical Center's Graduate Nurse Residency Program applied teamwork principles in 2014 when they used the video to reinvigorate the TeamSTEPPS effort.

To engage hospital leadership and staff and to sustain a reintroduction of TeamSTEPPS, the nurses used a football-team theme to help people rally around important concepts.

"We made jackets, T-shirts, and posters" that summarized the TeamSTEPPS strategies and tools, Ms. Hyland explained. The group then made a six-minute video, called Tackling Effective Communication Using TeamSTEPPS. The video highlights nine important TeamSTEPPS elements, such as the communication technique known as "SBAR" (Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation), which helps clinical teams share information in four important categories. Another technique, "CUS" (I am concerned! I am uncomfortable! This is a safety issue!), encourages team members to speak out when they detect potential threats to safety and is also featured in the video.

Ms. Hyland said the hospital's nurses developed an effective strategy to produce and use the video. They worked together to create a product that would be received well by their peers. Then they "sold" their plan to enthusiastic hospital leadership. To finance the project, nurse graduate residents wrote a successful funding proposal.

"To do so, [the nurse graduate residents] had to understand TeamSTEPPS fully before writing the script and conveying it," thereby creating TeamSTEPPS champions, Ms. Hyland said. "It has totally reinvigorated things and empowered people."