Patient Safety Jeopardy

Patient ID, medication safety, fall prevention, and safe handoffs, reviewed as a team game. Free to copy for Patient Safety Awareness Week, with phones as buzzers.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

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Patient Identification

$200
The Joint Commission requires at least this many patient identifiers before care, treatment or services.
What is two?
$400
Along with full name, this is the most commonly used second patient identifier.
What is date of birth?
$600
Asking patients to state their own name, rather than asking whether they are Mr. Smith, uses this kind of question.
What is an open-ended question?
$800
Site marking and a final pause before incision are parts of this Joint Commission protocol for preventing wrong-site surgery.
What is the Universal Protocol?
$1,000
This two-word term, popularized by the National Quality Forum, covers wrong-patient surgery and other serious errors considered wholly preventable.
What are never events?

Medication Safety

$200
Before giving a medication, always check the patient's record for these, such as a reaction to penicillin.
What are allergies?
$400
Hydroxyzine and hydralazine are an example of this term for drug names that are easily confused.
What are look-alike, sound-alike drugs?
$600
Insulin, heparin and opioids are among these drugs that carry a heightened risk of significant harm when used in error.
What are high-alert medications?
$800
This process compares a patient's medication list at every transition of care to catch omissions and duplications.
What is medication reconciliation?
$1,000
Do Not Use lists ban this, as in 1.0 mg, because a missed decimal point could cause a tenfold overdose.
What is a trailing zero?

Preventing Falls

$200
Keeping this within the patient's reach helps them ask for help instead of getting up alone.
What is the call light?
$400
Hospitals give patients nonskid versions of these to prevent slipping.
What are socks?
$600
Checking on patients every hour for pain, toileting and positioning needs is known as this.
What is hourly rounding?
$800
These pressure-sensing devices alert staff when a high-risk patient tries to get out of bed unassisted.
What are bed alarms?
$1,000
A drop in blood pressure on standing, causing dizziness, is this common contributor to falls.
What is orthostatic hypotension?

Safe Handoffs

$200
SBAR stands for situation, background, assessment and this.
What is recommendation?
$400
Nurses often give handoff report here, so the patient can see and take part in it.
What is the bedside?
$600
The Joint Commission has linked this kind of failure, more than technical skill, to a large share of sentinel events.
What is communication failure?
$800
SBAR was adapted for healthcare from a technique used on submarines by this branch of the U.S. military.
What is the Navy?
$1,000
In the I-PASS handoff tool, the final S stands for this by the receiver.
What is synthesis?

Speaking Up

$200
Repeating a verbal order back to confirm it was heard correctly is known by this term.
What is read-back?
$400
Borrowed from manufacturing, this phrase lets any team member halt work over a safety concern.
What is stop the line?
$600
In the CUS tool, a team member escalates from concerned to uncomfortable to declaring this.
What is a safety issue?
$800
This team training program from AHRQ and the Department of Defense teaches tools like CUS and check-back.
What is TeamSTEPPS?
$1,000
A steep one of these between senior and junior staff can make people afraid to question an order.
What is an authority gradient?

Learning From Errors

$200
An error caught before it reaches the patient is called this.
What is a near miss?
$400
This structured investigation looks past individual mistakes to find the underlying system causes of an event.
What is root cause analysis?
$600
This Joint Commission term covers a patient safety event that results in death, permanent harm or severe temporary harm.
What is a sentinel event?
$800
This approach separates honest human error from reckless behavior, balancing system fixes with accountability.
What is a just culture?
$1,000
James Reason's model compares defenses to slices of this food, with harm getting through when the holes line up.
What is Swiss cheese?

Final Jeopardy — Landmark Reports

This 1999 Institute of Medicine report, which estimated that as many as 98,000 Americans died each year from medical errors, helped launch the modern patient safety movement.

What is To Err Is Human?

How to run this board

This board brings together the practices that prevent harm in day-to-day care: correct patient identification, the rights of medication administration, fall prevention, structured handoffs, speaking up when something looks wrong, and how a just culture learns from errors and near misses.

It is a refresher and a conversation starter, not a replacement for your organization's safety training or protocols. Edit the clues to use the handoff tool, fall-risk scale, and reporting system your unit actually uses.

Mix disciplines on each team if you can, with nurses, pharmacists, physicians, and support staff together. The speaking-up column lands best when someone junior and someone senior are answering side by side.

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