North Carolina Center for
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Education

Leading the Healthcare Team: Developing Your Control Presence
The Joint Commission reported that communication errors are the most common sentinel events in US hospitals. There are numerous studies in the medical literature describing the importance of team training, especially in high acuity areas, to improve communication and reduce medical errors. Several reports show a relationship between team behaviors and patient outcomes. The Joint Commission promotes teamwork through a focus on coordination of care and support of healthcare professionals. Professional societies acknowledge the need for effective teamwork in our complex healthcare environment.

The NC Center for Hospital Quality and Patient Safety, partnered with Hohenhaus & Associates and Wake AHEC, is offering Leading the Healthcare Team: Developing Your Control Presence. This two-hour program uses TeamSTEPPS^TM principles and selected successful practices from other high stakes industries and professions, to prepare clinicians to "step outside the comfort zone" and develop a "control presence" to effectively lead a healthcare team. This course provides ideas and tools for the clinician to lead a team and improve their teamwork and communication skills. Additional information can be found in the PDF flyer. The January session has been postponed. Contact Latoshua LeGrant for more information.

NC TeamSTEPPS^TM Fundamentals
Download the flyer.
Healthcare organizations depend on the coordinated interactions of multiple teams operating in a complex and high risk environment. Patient safety experts agree that communication and other teamwork skills are essential for the provision of quality healthcare and the prevention of medical errors and patient harm. Communication failure is the leading root cause of sentinel events reported to the Joint Commission. Despite the importance of teamwork and communication skills, most healthcare professionals are not trained in teamwork principles. Teamwork skills are not innate - they must be learned and practiced.

TeamSTEPPS^TM is an evidence-based system aimed at optimizing patient outcomes by improving communication and other teamwork skills among healthcare professionals. It was developed by the Department of Defense Patient Safety Program in collaboration with the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research (AHRQ) and is based in over 20 years of research and lessons learned from the application of teamwork principles in high reliability organizations.

TeamSTEPPS^TM Fundamentals is an interactive workshop which focuses on improving core team functioning through lecture, role-playing, exercises and mini-case studies.

NC TeamSTEPPS^TM Master Training
TeamSTEPPS^TM Master Training is an interactive workshop which prepares instructors to facilitate a TeamSTEPPS^TM initiative at an organization. Training and coaching skills are developed through didactic, roll play and teach back exercises.

NC Lean Healthcare
The NC Quality Center in partnering with The Industrial Extension Service (IES) at NC State University are working with hospitals throughout North Carolina to establish the NC Lean Healthcare Program. This program is based on the concepts of Lean thinking, a management strategy of reducing waste in healthcare processes so that all work adds value and serves the customer (also know as the patient). Lean methodology helps healthcare systems to improve service delivery, care, and outcomes for patients while also reducing costs to the system. IES at NC State has extensive experience working with healthcare organizations within North Carolina to develop lean operations.

For more information on Lean Healthcare and upcoming events, go to http://www.ies.ncsu.edu/leanhealthcare, call Annah Poteat with IES at 704.202.7610 or email at Suzannah_poteat@ncsu.edu or Dean Higgins at 919.677.4212 or email dhiggins@ncha.org.

IHI SPRINT: Safe Surgery Saves Lives Challenge
The following hospitals took the Quality Center and IHI challenge to test the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist at least once by April 1, 2009:

NC Patient Safety Training Program - "Ideas and Execution: The Manager's Role in Patient Safety"
The NC Center for Hospital Quality and Patient Safety and partners are offering "Ideas and Execution", the Manager's Role in Patient Safety to assist managers in the journey to align with organizational priorities for quality and patient safety. This 3-day course is part of the NC Patient Safety Program which consists of four targeted educational programs or modules.

The targeted programs are aimed at key organizational stakeholders and promote a common safety language, organizational alignment and coordination of resources around a common quality and safety agenda. To effectively transform an organization, the organization will need to send the key stakeholders to the targeted programs. Ideas and Execution is targeted at organizational managers.

QI 101
February 16 - June 23, 2010
Download the brochure.
If you missed it before, QI 101: A Toolbox for Improvement is back! Charlotte AHEC in collaboration with the NC AHEC Program and the North Carolina Center for Hospital Quality and Patient Safety is partnering to offer this course to help develop and improve your skills in quality improvement. Quality Improvement 101 (QI 101) is an interactive learning opportunity for teams and organizations leading initiatives to improve health care quality. This program includes an action-oriented curriculum in which participants learn about systems improvement principles and immediately apply what they are learning to specific local projects.

Additional information can also be found on the Charlotte AHEC Web site.

NC Quality & Patient Safety Conference
The NC Quality Center held the Annual Quality & Patient Safety Conference on March 12-13, 2009 at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill, NC. The conference was a great success with well over 200 in attendance. See the agenda and presentations from past conferences.