Healthcare Quality Week is about celebrating professionals improving healthcare quality and what better way to celebrate than to play a game for a chance at a prize. The game below, conducted remotely, helped us to see how instructions, perceived to be clear and easily understood, may not be clear to those receiving the instructions. As you can see from the slide show below, a great deal of information was left open to interpretation. These instructions seemed specific and clear, yet few ended up with the ideal outcome. We can also see that there is always room for improvement and review when giving instructions.
It is likely, that a few minor adjustments could have led to a more ideal outcome. Allowing for questions, repetition of the instructions, providing a sample picture of the expected drawing, or giving the instructions via multiple modalities may have had a large impact on the ease in which the task was completed and the successfulness of the outcomes.
All participants just needed a pen/pencil and a piece of paper with a nine-box grid. The expected outcome was a drawing of a pig.
Below are the 13 steps or instructions, which were read to all, and a slide show of outcomes. This is a variation of the Standard Pig Game from Shmula. Enjoy!
- Draw a letter “M” at the top-left intersection, the bottom center of the “M” touches the intersection
- Draw a letter “W” at the bottom-left intersection, the top center of the “W” touches the intersection
- Draw another letter “W” at the bottom-right intersection, the top center of the “W” touches the intersection
- Draw an arc from the letter “M” to the top right intersection
- Draw another arc from the top right intersection to the bottom right “W”
- Draw an arc between the bottom “W’s”
- Draw the letter “O” in the center-left box
- Draw an arc from the letter “M” to the tangent of the circle
- Draw an arc from the left “W” to the tangent of the circle
- Draw an arc for an eye, halfway between the “M” and the circle
- Draw an arc for the mouth, halfway between the “W” and the circle (make it happy not a frown)
- Draw the cursive letter “e” near the top of the arc on the right
- Draw two dots in the middle of the circle for nostrils
I (Stacy Gehm RN, MS, LSSBB, Operations & Process Improvement Trainer) would like to thank DeNae Garcia, BSN RN CPEN, Senior Project Manager Pediatric Services and Liz Klein, BSN RN SCR, Registry Services Director Surgical Services, for coordinating all the activities during Registry Partners Healthcare Quality Week. And congratulations out to the winners of the Process Improvement Pig drawing game: Alexandra Wichman and Janah Stewart.