To what extent do group members understand and accept their roles?
Team-Building Activities Team-building activities, originally designed to improve interpersonal workplace relation- ships, have expanded to include meeting goals and accomplishing tasks (Salas et al., 2008). A recent study found that female students in medicine and nursing were more open-minded about cooperating with other health professions than were male medical or nursing students (Wilhelmsson et al., 2011). This is positive news for those involved in team building with women, less so with male participants.
Training sessions for team-building can be effective in helping participants acquire skills, but the results are short-lived if the skills are not reinforced on the job. To effectively maintain the team performance, learned behaviors should be measured and rewarded (Salas et al., 2008).
Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS) is a program developed by the Department of Defense and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to integrate teamwork into practice (Henriksen et al., 2008; King et al., 2008). TeamSTEPPS involves three phases: