Better Together: Combine Teamwork Training and Systems Interventions to Improve Safety

​Initiatives that combine teamwork training and systems interventions are more effective than implementing either approach alone, according to a study published in the January 2017 Annals of Surgery. Most interventions to improve patient safety in surgery have taken two distinctly different approaches: providing training to improve teamwork and communication or approaching it through systems analysis. However, the authors said, no studies have addressed which of these approaches works best. The authors conducted five identically designed controlled before-and-after studies aimed at improving patient safety in the operating room. The four-month interventions involved all staff in the operating theater and used teamwork training (TT), systems redesign and standardization (SOP), Lean quality improvement, SOP and TT combined, and Lean and TT combined. In all, they reviewed 453 operations (255 with some sort of intervention, 198 control).