This week on StressedOutNurses.com, we’re focusing on a culture change. Monday, Wednesday, and today, we’re presenting three unique stories that can help you improve the environment around you. Whether you’re an aspiring staff nurse or a nurse manager, bring these ideas with you wherever you go and watch your peers’ eyes light up. Here’s the third and final installment:

Spider webs are known for catching things. The silky, intricately designed strings can clutch insects and harness beams of sunlight. At Norman (OK) Regional Health System, they helped to grab something even more impressive–staff’s attention.

“I really get into these themes,” says Vicki Johnson, BSN, BC, the clinical education specialist at the 337-bed facility.

Johnson started with spider webs, added a few skeleton arms, and tossed in some candy and decorations to set the stage for a memorable experience. The Halloween-themed total hip/knee skills fair–a creative way to measure annual competencies–went off without a hitch. It did, however, include a scream or two.

“It was all decorated like a haunted house,” says Beth Phillips, LPN, a staff member at Norman. “It made it more fun.”

Breaking out of the boring box

Every year, the staff at Norman Regional–like staff at other hospitals–have to prove their competencies. The trick for the educators is to come up with something that will hold everyone’s interest and attention.

In the past, for example, booths or stations were set up throughout the hospital. Staff would make their way around and watch or hear a short presentation.

“They get the knowledge, but they don’t get practice,” Johnson says. “It doesn’t demonstrate competency.”

The staff also prefer the hands-on approach. “It gives us more confidence that we are doing it the right way,” Phillips says.

Setting up for a scare

Johnson knew that she could use mannequins for the fair, but she wanted to go a step further. Instead, the hospital–with help from the staff’s children–used real people as patients.

“We took volunteer teenagers and gave them a script,” Johnson says. “They got really into it. They started having a lot of fun.”

Around the volunteers, who were called Frankenhosts, Johnson decorated two rooms–one for hip skills and one for knee skills–with Halloween items including spider webs and skeletons. But the scariest part of the fair came when the staff actually came in to participate–because everything in the rooms was wrong.

“The staff had to analyze or interpret several things that were incorrect in each room,” Johnson says. “So, they had to incorporate critical thinking into the whole process.”

In total, it took each staff member about 15-20 minutes to go through the two rooms. Typically, with videos or a presentation, competency testing can take from 45 minutes to an hour, Phillips says.

And, Phillips adds, interactive testing is generally much more effective.

“It was more like we were walking into our own patient’s room,” she says. “We weren’t just looking at a videotape or listening to someone. You could tell people were having fun.”

Editor’s note: To read the two other articles about culture change presented this week, click here and here.