Incentives help staff prepare for JCAHO survey
Prizes and perks are persuasive
Preparing for a survey by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is a time of games and prizes for nurses at St. Margaret Mercy Home Care in Hammond, IN.
The agency held about 10 inservices where employees were asked questions aloud about the Joint Commission survey. Each employee received points for both attending the inservice and for correct answers, says Karen Wade, RN, MS, director of home care services for the hospital-based nonprofit agency, which has two sites in Indiana and one in Illinois.
"We had a few hundred questions and took the entire Joint Commission manual, covering every key aspect of it," Wade says.
The questions included anything a surveyor might ask an employee. "We were throwing scenarios at them, such as, If I were a surveyor, how would you tell us we demonstrate patient’s rights?’" Wade explains.
"We didn’t want them to memorize something and then regurgitate it. We wanted them to tell us how they comprehend it and would do something."
The inservices also included hands-on opportunities so nurses could demonstrate a particular skill.
"Learning is so different among people; some people are visual; others auditory; others hands-on-tactile, and some are all three," Wade says. "We tried to address all of the ways people learn."
In case a staff member couldn’t make it to a particular inservice, the same questions would be asked at an inservice in another of the agency’s offices. "That gave them three opportunities to never miss a session," Wade notes.
Other prizes included key chains, educational books, nursing manuals, and zipper pencil bags.
The incentives worked so well that the staff did homework to prepare for the inservices. Wade says they were given information sheets with tips they’d need to know.
Those who scored highest won prizes and perks, including weekends or holidays without having to be on call.
"The staff loved it, and they were dying to get no-call for X amount of months," Wade recalls.
[Karen Wade, RN, MS, Director of Home Care Services, can be reached at St. Margaret Mercy Home Care, 5454 Hohman Ave., Hammond, IN 46320, or by calling (219) 933-6663.
To contribute to Tips From the Field, call Melinda Young, editor, Homecare Education Management, at (704) 859-6854. Or write to Melinda Young, P.O. Box 1024, Tryon, NC 28782.]
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