10 tips for writing policies staff will read

Why Spend All That Effort Writing Policies?

Why spend all that effort meticulously drafting policies and procedures if no one is going to read them?

During my visits to nursing units, I always make a point to ask the front line staff about the tools they have to do their job well.

What hinders you?

What would make your job easier?

What do you see as being wasteful and purposeless, yet incredibly time-consuming?

A Common Theme To The Responses

A common theme to the responses that I hear is that inefficient document flow and paper shuffling wastes time. To make it worse, the policies and standards of care are often not even read.

“Why does staff avoid accessing policies and reading them?” I ask.

I hear answers like:

“They are too long”

“I have difficulty finding what I am looking for, since it is buried in all the text”

“The content is outdated and references are not even current or follow best practices”

An Important Fact That’s Often Overlooked

It is important that the staff in your organization have the opportunity to give feedback about the policies and procedures they use every day.  It makes sense to ask them.  When you take your car to the service station, they ask you to complete a survey about your experience using the car, right (or at least, they should!)?  The most important people to ask about any process should be the very people who use it, yet this point is often overlooked when evaluating processes.

2 Out Of 5!

Staff nurses have told me that they rate the effectiveness of P&Ps at about 2 out of 5 – they’re simply not satisfied with the way the policies read, so they don’t want to consult them as guidelines. They just trust their head knowledge and ask their peers about what to do, rather than using the policy which is not safe at all.

How do you improve on that score of 2 out of 5?

Adopt Some Key Principles of Writing Good Policies

On the internet, there are many tools, guides and handbooks for writing them.

Here is a brief tutorial: the policy and procedure format should be simple, standardized and easy to use.  For a not-so-brief tutorial, download the guidelines that I’ve provided below. Look at the policies in your facility, and see if they follow the 10 qualities of good policies.

Download the 10 Qualities of Good Policies

Included in the download is a recommendation for how your policies should be formatted.

Nicola Heslip | Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality | PolicyMedical

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