Chapter 2. Are You Ready?

Assess Faculty Attitudes Toward Teamwork

Collaboration is key to integrating oral health across the health professions and to teaching students to work effectively in high-performing health care teams. But collaboration among faculty members is not always the norm, and at many institutions, health professions programs continue to operate in silos.

Before you embark on a program of integrating oral health in the curriculum, you’ll want to assess faculty attitudes towards collaboration and interprofessional team-based care. The results will guide you in creating faculty development programs targeted to the needs of your community.

To conduct your survey, consider using TeamSTEPPS^®.

The TeamSTEPPS system. This widely respected training program offers a reliable, free survey tool for assessing faculty attitudes toward teamwork. The TeamSTEPPS^® Teamwork Attitudes Questionnaire (T-TAQ) looks at five core components of teamwork that will help you gauge the culture at your institution.

TeamSTEPPS was developed jointly by the Department of Defense and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to improve the quality and safety of patient care. To learn more about the system, which includes a full curriculum and other resources, visit the TeamSTEPPS page for professionals.

The process. T-TAQ is a paper-based questionnaire. To ensure the reliability and validity of the results, it should not be modified. Background questions regarding respondents’ education, experience, age, and the like are not included on the T-TAQ. Institutions that want to track particular characteristics may develop additional questions for inclusion on a separate page. As with any survey, a high response rate will help ensure accurate results. For further guidance in how to use the questionnaire, see the TeamSTEPPS^® Teamwork Attitudes Questionnaire Manual.