High-Performance Teamwork in Incident Management

May 13, 2020

Erin Eckert, MPA, Education Coordinator, Duke Center for Healthcare Safety and Quality, discusses how TeamSTEPPS supports the teamwork principles underlying the National Incident Management System (NIMS). NIMS provides the national framework for managing disasters and emergency incidents of all sizes, from car accidents to our current COVID-19 response activities. Every organization develops its own response plans and procedures, but the NIMS framework is what allows effective alignment and sharing of capabilities and resources across multiple organizations, different disciplines and jurisdictional boundaries. The presenter discusses common challenges to effective teamwork in incident management – both within organizations and across organizations – and the TeamSTEPPS tools that can be used to overcome them.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the relationship between TeamSTEPPS teachable/learnable skills and the principles of NIMS
• Describe common challenges to effective teamwork in incident management
• Identify just-in-time TeamSTEPPS tools that can enhance effective communication and situational awareness in current incident management scenarios