Ideas That Work: Unlocking Team Education

Practical pearls from your colleagues

Packed OR schedules and staffing shortages conspired to cancel Kadlec Regional Medical Center’s annual skills fair, which was scheduled to take place in its simulation lab near its main campus in Richland, Wash. So Clinical Educator Annette McCulley, RN, BSN, CPAN, CAPA, sprang into action with a great alternative she called the Skills Day Lock Box.

Ms. McCulley devised a series of learning modules that challenged each team member’s knowledge and clinical skills. She set up six stations between two rooms in an overflow unit, all with posters displaying up-to-date practice and policies, along with materials for hands-on practice in accomplishing tasks such as setting up an arterial line and accessing mediports. She even applied QR codes on the posters that allowed team members to watch videos about the educational materials on the spot on their own devices.

The questions she created for each module were laminated on a different color of paper, each of which corresponded with a lock of the same color that secured the box. (She purchased the locks and hasp — the clasp that holds all the locks — from Amazon.) The correct answers for each module created a four-digit code Ms. McCulley had set for its lock. Upon completion of each module, the team member matched its color code to the corresponding lock on the box and entered the code their answers generated.

Once the team member entered the correct codes for each module and unlocked all the locks, they opened the box to find an attendance sheet and a collection of small prizes from which they could choose.

“The team members all found it very engaging and enjoyed it,” says Ms. McCulley, who says in some cases groups of four to six people banded together to unlock the box. “The education is low-tech, low-cost, accessible, interactive and highly successful,” adds Director of Perioperative Services Roshelle Satterthwait, RN, MHSA, CNOR, CENP. OSM