Hardwiring TeamSTEPPS into Trauma Resuscitations: Optimizing Tar Heel Trauma Care

October 10, 2018

A trauma team’s ability to rapidly organize, identify, and manage life-threatening conditions often determines whether a severely injured patient lives or dies. Given the complex nature of ad hoc, interprofessional teams and performing under stress, establishing a reliable and sustainable resuscitation process is no easy task. With backgrounds in trauma care, quality improvement, athletics, and the military, the webinar presenters discuss how ongoing work to stan¬dardize and continually improve trauma resuscitations in the emergency department is strengthening a culture of TeamSTEPPS and patient safety in an academic Level I Adult and Pediatric Trauma Center. Alberto Bonifacio, RN, BSN, MHA, CEN and Elizabeth Schroeder, RN, BSN, CEN, TCRN of University of North Carolina Hospitals, and Daryhl Johnson II, MD, MPH, FACS of UNC School of Medicine share precious lessons learned and real-world insights into how Kotter’s Model informed project methodology; how monthly high-fidelity, in situ trauma simulations are hard¬wiring TeamSTEPPS principles into trauma teams; and how innovative research into leadership and situational awareness is expanding our knowledge into patient safety.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss how TeamSTEPPS and Kotter’s Model was effectively applied to conduct a multi-disciplinary, large-scale quality improvement project to improve trauma resuscitations
• Describe how simulation can be used to hardwire TeamSTEPPS into processes by model new processes, probe for systems gaps, and educate teams in teamwork, communication, and leadership
• Explore how our methodology can be used to improve performance of other crisis teams and conduct research in situational awareness