Psychological Safety and Building Strength in Teams

September 9, 2020

During the COVID-19 pandemic, anxiety and depression rates for health care workers increased coinciding with the likelihood of decreased teamwork and morale. Sanne Holbrook Henninger, MSW, LCSW, Ed D, Director of Patient Experience for Duke Private Diagnostic Clinic, discusses how concepts of psychological safety, performance improvement and TeamSTEPPS can be used to build action plans for helping teams in crisis. Teams under stress require a solid base of trust, comfort in speaking up, team support, established team values, leadership alignment and communication tools. Team interventions must also go beyond the use of tools and skills and be customized to engage staff in activities to address conflicts, barriers, struggles, leadership relations and events. Effective team work action plans require interventions that go further with activities related to the deeper issues as they evolve. This session offers an overview of tools and activities but also offers interventions with examples.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify specific skills to strengthen teamwork in order to withstand change and heightened stress
• Use a tool to evaluate the health and resilience of a team
• Design broad and customized interventions to the specific needs of a clinical area