DNP FINAL PROJECT: IMPLEMENTING TEAMSTEPPS TRAINING: USING EVIDENCE TO IMPACT TEAMWORK IN AN ACUTE CARE HOSPITAL

Background: Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. Patient morbidity and mortality will decrease when institutional efforts result in the implementation of action plans which reduce medical errors. Teamwork, education, and training through structured initiatives are the most effective mechanism to improve patient safety. Purpose: The project aims to impact the perception of communication among newly hired medical surgical nursing and support staff. The acute care hospital is a 200-bed tertiary care hospital. Intervention: The intervention consists of the registered nurses and support staff participating in an innovative, six-hour, interactive TeamSTEPPS fundamentals course. Results: Results from the TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Perception Questionnaire (T-TPQ) -the five teamwork construct question groups had an average improvement of 1.24 in scores (P =0.0008). Conclusion: The primary impact of TeamSTEPPS training includes improvement in the perception of teamwork. The secondary impact includes improvement in patient outcomes. The overall rating of patient satisfaction. Increased from 70 to 88 percentile. Patient falls per 1,000 per patient days decreased from 0.85% to 0.70%