Using a game format to improve compliance with required review of hospital standards and policies

Maintaining quality patient care requires frequent review of hospital standards and policies. This repetition, however, proves to be boring and not much fun, resulting in poor staff participation. The anticipation of a visit from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) provided the impetus for individual nursing units to develop a means of addressing this problem. Utilizing shared governance concepts, staff developed a game format to stimulate interest. This not only made learning and reviewing fun, but also empowered the staff to become accountable for the quality of their work. This article describes the development of the game format, its implementation, and evaluation of its effectiveness.