TeamSTEPPS: A System Designed to Improve Communication in Order to Saves Lives
When people go to see the doctor, the amount of trust that is placed in the doctor by these people is extremely high. People trust that when they tell a doctor the symptoms that they are experiencing, the doctor will exhaust all means to help ensure a full recovery. But, the doctor and the patient are not the only parties that are involved in this process. There are also other staff members that are part of the process as well. There are nurses who take vital signs, medical assistants who take administrative information, orderlies who prepare areas where patients will be seen, etc. Each person has particular information for which they are responsible and each person's information is vitally important to helping ensure that the patient gets the care that they need in order to go home healthy. Imagine that any one part of the vital information does not make it to another person. What happens when the communication process between healthcare professionals for one patient is ineffective and causes the doctor to miss a small piece of important information? The most extreme thing that could happen is the loss of life. And while sometimes life may be spared, the quality of life with which the patient is left may not be good at all. Because this is a very real possibility and has happened more times than it should, the process know as Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS) was introduced into the healthcare world (www.teamstepps.ahrq.gov). In 2005, TeamSTEPPS was developed by the Department of Defense's Patient Safety Program in collaboration of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. It is a teamwork system designed for health
