Ensuring that providing high quality care is always a top priority requires the support and enthusiasm of every member of a hospital team, regardless of their specific role. One facility that has taken this to heart is Southern Tennessee Regional Health System – Pulaski (STRHS-Pulaski). In 2017, the hospital team developed a unique approach to keeping quality front and center by engaging employees and providers in its “Quality Casino” initiative.
Conceptualized by several clinical leaders at the facility, the Quality Casino was created as a way to further incentivize hospital staff members to focus on improving quality, safety and the patient experience. Patients are given special poker chips that they can give out to staff whenever they experience exceptional care and service. Staff members collect these chips and bring them to the quarterly Quality Casino event, which is held at the hospital, to play games and win prizes. While the Quality Casino provides a fun opportunity for employees to come together to celebrate recent quality wins, the featured activities are all quality- and service-focused, providing additional education and skill building for staff. The games and activities are aptly named and cover a wide variety of quality and safety topics, including Teach Back Blackjack, Rounding Roulette, Fall Jenga, C. Diff Craps and AIDET Jeopardy, among others.
Importantly, the STRHS-Pulaski team has proven that the Quality Casino is not just fun and games – it is helping to drive real quality results. The hospital has maintained its low preventable harms rate of under 2.2 per 1,000 patient days. In 2017, STRHS-Pulaski became the sixth LifePoint facility to earn designation for its work as part of the LifePoint National Quality Program. Additionally, it was named a Health Grades Award of Excellence designee in 2018 and 2019, and has attained Modern Healthcare’s 100 Best Places to Work for the last 3 years.
The Quality Casino earned STRHS-Pulaski the first-ever Innovation Award given at the LifePoint Health Quality Leadership Conference this year. This important initiative is now an established hallmark of STRHS-Pulaski’s culture and has been heralded as a leading practice that other hospitals and organizations seek to emulate.
Congratulations to the STRHS-Pulaski team, and thank you for your ongoing leadership and commitment to quality and patient safety.
