Games can make OSHA class less tedious
Games can make OSHA class less tedious
Most education managers may find that their staffs grudgingly sit through the annual inservice on Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) guidelines. But at a New Hampshire home care agency, some years, the staff couldn't wait to learn about OSHA because it was all a game to them.
"Every year, everyone has to do OSHA safety and infection control, and it gets to be a bit much for staff," says Linda Grass, RN, education coordinator for Optima Health Visiting Nurse Services in Manchester, NH.
So Grass and other employees borrowed from various television game shows and compiled several games about OSHA and universal precautions.
Here's their "recipe" for the homemade game:
Universal precautions. On a large homemade gameboard, place a large picture of the universe with stars and comets. Then draw the letters A and L. This symbolizes universal. Then put the letters P, R, and E, meaning "pre," and place a plus sign after the letters. Next to that, draw a picture of a crow crowing, and draw an arrow to the crow's open mouth. Next to that, draw a picture of someone's lower legs and draw an arrow to the shins. Together the letters and symbols spell out "universal precautions." (See sample, inserted in this issue.)
Over that word picture, place a piece of poster board that is cut in squares. Each piece has a universal precautions question and answer. For example, one question might be "When is a sharps container filled?" and the corresponding answer might be "When it's three-quarters full."
These questions and answers are covered with yet another piece of poster board that has been cut in similar pieces that have numbers written on them. The game participants will randomly select first one number and then a second to see if they can find a match on the questions and answers.
When the correct match is found, just like in the children's game Go Fish, then the corresponding pieces are taken off the game board, and the picture below them is revealed.
The game may end when someone guesses what the picture below the pieces says. However, Grass says, it still might be best to have nurses play it until the all the questions have been answered.
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