Tips From the Field
Grab staff’s attention with a Hawaiian hula party
Brooklyn agency makes the most of games
If there’s one sentence you’ve probably heard a lot over the past year, and it’s always said in an exasperated tone, it is: "I’m sick of hearing about OASIS!"
Unfortunately, education managers and home care directors can’t pretend the word doesn’t exist because it’s become as much a fact of life for home care agencies as taxes.
So what can you do to lighten up OASIS inservices, or any other inservices on equally unpopular subjects? The Visiting Nurse Association of Brooklyn, NY, has a solution: Simply throw a Hawaiian party.
The free-standing urban agency typically holds a large theme-oriented event each year to make the medicine of mandatory inservices easier to swallow. But in 1998, the agency had to focus on teaching staff about the Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) because the Baltimore-based Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) has required its use for data collection.
The agency presented OASIS education in the form of a tropical party, complete with leis, pina colada sodas, umbrellas in drinks, and coconut shell candles, says Celina Mompoint, RN, BSN, staff development coordinator.
The agency also provided food, including a four-foot hero sandwich and a fruit platter.
The agency, which has about 200 employees, held 14 inservices on OASIS, and the Hawaiian theme was used for all but two of them, Mompoint says.
Each inservice lasted about two hours, and some were held in the evenings for the fee-for-service workers.
"We watched a video that introduced OASIS, and then we went over the forms," Mompoint says.
The staff gave the inservices a thumbs up on evaluation forms, she adds.
Try fair theme for mandatory inservices
For mandatory inservices in the fall of 1997, the agency used the theme of a country fair.
"People loved it, and they want us to do it again," Mompoint says.
The fair included balloons shaped like clowns, carnival music, popcorn, peanuts, ice cream, and a variety of booths and gaming centers. The booths each had mandatory educational material for staff to review and complete. The booth’s various games, included the following:
• a bingo game about infection control;
• a word search about substance abuse;
• a Jeopardy game on abuse and neglect;
• crossword puzzles about disaster and emergency plans;
• a hangman game on safety. (See substance abuse word search, infection control BINGO, and disaster crossword puzzle, inserted in this issue.)
"Staff would go to each booth, and some were group activities and others were independent activities," Mompoint says.
Prizes were given to the game winners, again in keeping with the fair theme. They included candy, pencils, magnets, and for those who completed an optional topic, a year planner.
Employees went into the fair in two-hour shifts. The fair was held in three shifts, including an evening time slot so that everyone would have time to attend. The agency held the fair about 12 times over a month.
Each employee was given a ticket to the fair, with one made out for the professional staff and a different one for the business staff. Once they went to each booth on their ticket list and either played the game or completed a quiz, a booth attendant would sign their ticket.
"The fair could accommodate 20 to 25 people at one time," Mompoint explains. "We said they could come in any time they liked, but a lot of nurses want a timed schedule, so we’d say they could select the 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. time slot or the noon to 2 p.m. time slot."
Although the agency selects a different theme each year, the fair theme was so popular that it might be brought back, Mompoint says. "People loved it and they want us to do it again."
Sources
• Karen Carney, President, Carney Communications, 12 Burnham Road, Andover, MA 01810-3104. Phone: (978) 475-2096. Fax: (978) 475-8476. E-mail: [email protected].
• Diane Gibson, RN, MmgtHCA, Director of Client Services, HomeNurse, 512 W. Lancaster Ave., Suite 2, Wayne, PA 19087-3190. Phone: (610) 975-9600.
• Kevin Loso, Associate Director for Development, Rutland Area VNA, P.O. Box 787, Rutland, VT 05702-0787. Phone: (802) 770-1533.
• Celina Mompoint, RN, BSN, Staff Development Coordinator, Visiting Nurse Association of Brooklyn, 150 Court St., Brooklyn, NY 11201-6244. Phone: (718) 834-7600. Fax: (718) 875-3495.
• Rosemary O’Neil, RN, BSN, CRRN, Rehabilitation Nurse, and Coordinator for the Health Connection, VNA of Greater Lowell, 336 Central St., Lowell, MA 01853. Phone: (978) 459-9343. Fax: (978) 459-0981.
• Cynthia Otto, RN, CCM, Recruitment Staff Development Specialist, Clinical Administrative Leader, Olsten Health Services, 2864 Dauphin St., Suite C, Mobile, AL 36606-2440. Phone: (334) 476-8212. Fax: (334) 471-4857.
• Carleton Townsend, Vice President for Quality Measurement, Fazzi Associates Inc., 243 King St., Suite 46, Northampton, MA 01060. Phone: (413) 584-5300. Fax: (413) 584-0220.
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