ALERTNESS PAYS An inexpensive gift card can help avert an expensive mistake.

Catch of the Month
A Small Reward Helps Keep Eyes Wide Open

We want everyone in our facility to always be on the lookout, since being alert can prevent a wrong-site surgery or save someone from a potentially disastrous slip-and-fall. With our "Good Catches" initiative, we make sure people are recognized and rewarded for keeping their eyes open and their synapses firing. It's an easy and inexpensive way to say thank you and please keep it up.

Here's how it works. Anyone who spots a potential problem — anything that might negatively impact a patient, an employee or a visitor — has her name entered into a monthly drawing for a gift certificate to a local eatery or department store. Say, for example, someone notices that a patient says he's having his right knee scoped, but the consent form says it's his left knee. Or maybe someone spots a small pool of liquid on the floor and makes sure it gets cleaned up before someone else comes along and slips.

We used to just say thank you and move on when people made good catches like those, but having the drawing seems to have increased awareness. At first, we were getting 4 or 5 entries a month. Now it's usually 15 or 20. Another benefit: We can also look for and address any patterns that emerge. So along with boosting morale and safety, the initiative helps us spot and correct systemic problems.

Lynn Pounds, RN
Orthopaedic South Surgery Center
Morrow, Ga.
[email protected]