TeamSTEPPS Updates

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality updated TeamSTEPPS^® in 2023 to address changes in healthcare delivery and learning methods and to emphasize patient engagement at the center of care. TeamSTEPPS 3.0 was developed in consultation with experts in teamwork and team training that included patients and family caregivers. It is guided by emerging research related to teams, team performance, communication, and adult learning, as well as input from frontline providers in care settings, including hospitals, long-term care facilities, and outpatient practices.

The updated curriculum consolidates content from previous versions into a single integrated resource. Users should begin with the welcome guide for their role: frontline providers, trainers of preprofessional students, administrators, patients and family caregivers, new TeamSTEPPS trainers, and experienced trainers.

The updated training is delivered in a modular course design using active learning strategies. 

The updated curriculum reflects five major emphases:

1. Patient Focus: How to involve patients and family caregivers in care processes and decision making is an important consideration for patient safety. Patients and family caregivers should be directly involved in care teams' discussions. Examples, teaching approaches, and other resources in the curriculum are designed to reinforce this focus. The curriculum also considers additional communication and patient engagement methods, such as patient portals and telehealth tools and technology.
2. Integrated TeamSTEPPS Platform: TeamSTEPPS 3.0 consolidates content from prior versions of the curriculum created for separate care settings and incorporates it into a single integrated resource.
3. Modular Course Design: TeamSTEPPS 3.0 can be taught in sessions of varying lengths. However, extended trainings can exceed attention spans or take staff away from other responsibilities for too long. A series of shorter trainings, or even a single shorter training addressing a specific need, may more effectively meet the needs of both TeamSTEPPS students and their organizations. Shorter sessions may also be easier to facilitate while using virtual or hybrid trainings.
4. Active Learning Strategies: The use of passive learning methods (e.g., listening to lectures) is less likely to produce sustainable changes in attitudes and behaviors of frontline staff compared with active learning strategies, which today’s workforce expects. The curriculum is designed to provide a variety of options for helping people learn or teach TeamSTEPPS 3.0, using discussions, exercises, video-based simulations, and other approaches they can actively engage in.
5. Emerging Team Challenges and Opportunities: Technology changes such as high-speed internet, instant messaging, and telemedicine are accompanied by an evolution in the workforce, which is more diverse and multigenerational. TeamSTEPPS 3.0 focuses on maximizing patient safety and makes connections between effective teamwork and well-being, job satisfaction, and reduced burnout of frontline care providers. The curriculum calls attention to the ways a more diverse workforce can benefit team functioning.