TeamSTEPPS offers help with distractions
The TeamSTEPPS (Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety) program offers two steps to prevent and handle OR distractions, says Michelle Feil, MSN, RN, senior patient safety analyst at the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority in Plymouth Meeting, PA.
TeamSTEPPS is a teamwork system designed for healthcare professionals by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) that is an evidence-based teamwork system to improve communication and teamwork skills among healthcare professionals in order to improve patient safety.
The first TeamSTEPPS step that addresses distractions is cross-monitoring, or "watching each other’s back," Feil says. "It is monitoring the behavior of other team members and providing feedback to ensure that procedures are being followed appropriately," she says. Team members help each other maintain focus on the primary task in the face of distraction, Feil says.
The second skill is advocacy and assertion, or "speaking up" about patient safety concerns, she says, "especially when the leader or other members of the team have failed to recognize the concern or do not believe the concern to be valid."
Team members are empowered to speak up when they recognize a distraction or interruption is impairing performance, Feil says. (For more information on TeamSTEPPS, see "Facility cuts falls 88% and med errors 30%," Same-Day Surgery, September 2012, p. 99.)
