Make your bulletin boards walk and talk
Agency’s roadshow brings lessons to students
The education manager of Southwest Home Care of Liberal, KS, was having trouble teaching staff in the agency’s three branch offices. Inservices worked fine for the employees in the main office but not for branch office workers.
"So we fixed up a traveling bulletin board, and we had a sign-up sheet for them after they had read it and understood it," says Cheryl Brock, RN, clinical program nurse for the hospital-based, nonprofit agency that serves the panhandle of Oklahoma in addition to counties in Kansas.
Brock used a regular 3 X 2 bulletin board that she decorated with construction paper and markers to make the educational topic eye-catching. Putting it together takes about 20 minutes, she says.
"I hand wrote tips and things," she says. "You can do a lot with construction paper, such as cutting it into squares and giving each square a title."
She selected educational topics by using a survey in which the agency’s nurses said which areas they wanted to go over. "Throughout the year, I went over our priorities and picked out topics," Brock says.
Then Brock or another home care professional would select tips and information about that subject and place these on the board.
When infection control was the topic, the board was decorated with bright green bugs with the written information beside them.
Other topics included how to deal with problem lifts and the initial evaluation and assessment of nursing diagnoses.
Typically, an employee who worked in the branch office would pick up the bulletin board when he or she came into the main office for mail. After the entire office had a chance to see the board, someone would bring it back.
"The feedback was positive," Brock relates. "They’re doing better in documentation now."
[Editor’s note: Cheryl Brock can be reached at Southwest Home Care, 103 E. 11th St., Liberal, KS 67901 or by calling (316) 629-2507.
To contribute to Tips from the Field, call Melinda Young, editor of Homecare Education Management, at (864) 233-1163 and leave a message; or fax (864) 271-6163; or write to 311 W. Earle St., B-9, Greenville, SC 29609.]
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