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Castaway: Creative themes for patient safety fairs

Pharmacy Regulation Resource, August 4, 2004

A patient safety fair is one way to help reinforce survey preparation and JCAHO medication standards.

Pharmacy staff at Deaconess Hospital in Oklahoma City took a creative approach when planning this year's fair. They incorporated a "Survivor Island" theme into the hospital's patient safety fair, using the popular television series as a basis for educating staff about medication-error prevention, says risk manager Tim O'Kelley, RN. The idea helped reinforce patient-safety initiatives and allowed staff to remember those efforts should a surveyor ask them questions during a survey.

Pharmacy staff put a cardboard cutout of an island in the hospital's large conference room, O'Kelley says. From 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., staff that visited the exhibit had to put together nine puzzle pieces and follow the path to the other side of the island.

Once they reached their destination, staff pulled out one of nine scrolls containing a question about medication-error prevention. Some of the questions included the following:

  • How do you report a medication error?
  • What are we doing to eliminate errors?
  • Is medication-error reporting punitive?

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