Qual Saf Health Care
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Qual Saf Health Care · Dec 2010
Assessing teamwork attitudes in healthcare: development of the TeamSTEPPS teamwork attitudes questionnaire.
The report, To Err is Human, indicated that a large number of deaths are caused by medical error. A central tenet of this report was that patient safety was not only a function of sophisticated healthcare technology and treatments, but also the degree to which healthcare professionals could perform effectively as teams. Research suggests that teamwork comprises four core skills: Leadership, Situation Monitoring, Mutual Support and Communication. In healthcare, team training programmes, such as TeamSTEPPS®, are designed to improve participant knowledge of, attitudes towards, and skills in these core areas. If such training programmes are effective, changes in knowledge, attitudes and skills should be observed. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Attitudes Questionnaire (T-TAQ), a measure designed to assess attitudes towards the core components of teamwork in healthcare. ⋯ The T-TAQ provides a useful, reliable and valid tool for assessing individual attitudes related to the role of teamwork in the delivery of healthcare. Issues related to its use and interpretation are discussed.
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Qual Saf Health Care · Dec 2010
Medication reconciliation in the emergency department: opportunities for workflow redesign.
To examine the role of workflow redesign to improve medication reconciliation at four Washington State community hospital emergency departments. ⋯ Ideas for an optimal workflow to generate a medication list include involving patients and utilising clerical staff to a greater extent in medication information gathering, identifying and flagging patients with missing medication information, and gathering only the medication information needed to make clinical decisions in the emergency department.
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Qual Saf Health Care · Dec 2010
Quality improvement of doctors' shift-change handover in neuro-critical care.
Clinical handover is a necessary process for the continuation of safe patient care; however, deficiencies in the handover process can introduce error. While the number of handover studies increases, few have validated implemented improvements with repeated audit. ⋯ Early specific training is vital for quality clinical handover. Distractions during handover cause inefficiency and can adversely affect information transfer. Changing handover location according to local environment can yield improved efficiency, structure and ease of management. Adequate time must be allocated for clinical handover especially when dealing with very sick and complex patients.
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Effective handoff practices (ie, mechanisms for transferring information, responsibility and authority) are critical to ensure continuity of care and patient safety. ⋯ This study provides insights into the multidimensional concept of handoff quality. Our rating tool is feasible and comprehensive by including not only characteristics of the information process but also aspects of teamwork and, thus, provides an important tool for future research on patient handoff.
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Qual Saf Health Care · Dec 2010
Randomized Controlled TrialTeamwork training with nursing and medical students: does the method matter? Results of an interinstitutional, interdisciplinary collaboration.
The authors conducted a randomised controlled trial of four pedagogical methods commonly used to deliver teamwork training and measured the effects of each method on the acquisition of student teamwork knowledge, skills, and attitudes. ⋯ Each of the four modalities demonstrated significantly improved teamwork knowledge and attitudes, but no modality was demonstrated to be superior. Institutions should feel free to utilise educational modalities, which are best supported by their resources to deliver interdisciplinary teamwork training.