A Statewide Framework for Teamwork: The Texas IPE Consortium's TeamSTEPPS Master Trainer Initiative
The Texas IPE Consortium began in 2015, as a collaboration between the Texas state funded Academic Health Science Centers (HSC) including The University of Texas System, Texas Tech University, The University of North Texas, and Texas A&M. The Consortium’s purpose is to foster cross-institutional collaboration to expand learning opportunities and reinforce value for IPE as a critical aspect of health professions education. Consortium institutional membership has expanded to over thirty public and private institutional members state-wide and has attracted institutional members from states that do not have an established state IPE consortium.
The Consortium’s Executive Board established a lofty goal to introduce and establish a common teamwork training framework (TeamSTEPPS®) Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety, across the State of Texas for all graduating health professions students. This goal supports the belief that the Consortium can impact health professions education and health care delivery as students across the state enter the workforce with a common framework for team-based practice. To support this goal an economical and easy to access TeamSTEPPS® Master Trainer Course was needed to train a cadre of faculty and preceptors, across the state of Texas.
This state-wide train-the-trainer TeamSTEPPS® Course is led by a cross institutional and interprofessional TeamSTEPPS® Master Trained faculty identified from within the Consortium membership. The training is offered at a minimal cost for faculty and preceptors of Consortium Institutional members and within the State of Texas to reduce travel expenses. The training consists of asynchronous online module pre-work completion and a synchronous day-long training. Prior to COVID, 2018-2019, the day-long synchronous active learning training session was held in-person on a day adjacent to the Texas IPE Consortium Member Meeting hosted at an Institutional member location within the State of Texas. In response to COVID precautions, in 2020 The Consortium’s TeamSTEPPS® Master Training synchronous day-long session was moved to an online format. Beginning in the summer of 2022 the Consortium will host the TeamSTEPPS® Master Training Course alternating in-person and online sessions annually.
The Consortium’s poster discusses the origin, purpose, strategies for creation, challenges, lessons learned, metrics and intended as well as unintended consequences of this successful state-wide train-the-trainer initiative. To date over 300 new TeamSTEPPS® Master Trainers have been trained through this cross-institutional state-wide initiative. Consortium Executive Board Members will be present to offer insights and to answer questions.
