A little friendly competition among staff can do wonders for your facility’s morale. More importantly, however, it will ensure folks retain critical safety and procedure protocols. That’s why we created a “Game Station” where we hosted a Family Feud style trivia contest among staff.

It’s a simple but effective way to ensure your staff remembers everything they need to remember about your policies and procedures. Start by breaking staff into 2 teams. Make sure different departments (sterile processing, PACU, etc.) are represented on each team. This not only ensures a fair competition, but it also fosters camaraderie among different departments. Next, decide on which topics you’ll quiz staff. We created a board with 5 categories: pre-op, PACU, sterile processing, periop, patient safety and codes. Each category includes 5 to 6 questions that can be anything from a specific policy detail to a general question about the chosen category. For example, we asked What are 4 identifiers our center uses for a fall risk patient?

The winning team received Starbucks gift cards — and bragging rights. We hosted ours after a CMS survey because it served as a good opportunity to go over the items we needed to improve upon.

Jane Bell, RN, BSN
Cityview Surgery Center
Fort Worth, Texas
[email protected]