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SAFETY
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BE PREPARED
Stay Ready With Mock Surveys
Once a month, our hospital's clinical educators are assigned to conduct mock surveys of each others' units. By quizzing department staffers on patient safety, medication storage, specimen labeling, crash
cart contents and other hot topics that accreditation or government surveyors tend to focus on when reviewing your facility, we're more prepared for the real thing. Not to put anybody on the spot, but it's a learning tool. Plus, staff seem more comfortable and less tense when surveyors are actually here, and more confident when responding to their queries. We've also upped the training value by enlisting a new hire to ask the questions. We give her a list of suggested questions, along with the proper responses she should expect to hear, a day in advance, and we'll tag along with her during the 20- to 30-minute surveys. This teaches the new team members the rules and what is required to pass, a staff orientation that holds surprises for many whom I've shepherded through the process.
Beatrice Sceery, RN
University of New Mexico Hospital
Albuquerque, N.M.
bsceery@salud.unm.edu
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each item on the checklist are crystal clear and standardized, down to the exact word or phraseology.
Checklist dialogue should be scripted. This level of standardization eliminates confusion and error.
6. Design it as a "read and
verify" tool
With this method the team accomplishes critical and routine actions from working memory. They periodically pause and use the checklist to verify that the most critical actions have been accomplished. Used this way, it takes only seconds
for the team to cross-check and
