It’s almost one year since My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene The Game was launched. Almost one year since players were invited to embark on a gaming mission to save lives and prevent infections, ultimately aiming to prevent them in real life.
When the game was launched, as part of the development team, we put out a clear call to action, destination dissemination! Dissemination is a journey, one in which those who play the game can play a game-changing role.
If we consider what dissemination success might ultimately look like in the real world, it would probably look a little like this: My 5 MOMENTS THE GAME is known and recognized as a key, trusted training resource to support hand hygiene action and infection prevention; those who use it across multiple countries and health system levels frequently use and refer to the Game in their improvement work – in their healthcare training and education programmes, to support behaviour change among healthcare workers; the Game is integrated into IPC training programmes; Individuals play the Game, and knowledge about hand hygiene keeps spreading and spreading and spreading and plays a part in changing behaviour.
But for all this to happen – people need to be aware of the Game, and its goal. The Game should be easy to find, easy to play, relevant and very importantly – trusted.
Here we highlight six things you can do to support your dissemination journey and this can be applied to other things that require a dissemination plan: i) familiarisation, ii) advocacy, iii) sharing, iv) exploration, v) endorsement, and vi) feedback. Let’s go into detail using the Game as an example.
First – Familiarise – access the Game, we make this easy for you by featuring the link here – don’t be shy. Experiment. Have fun. Learn.
Second – become an Advocate – talk about the Game and engage with others about it. Develop a mantra that will be easy to use at key moments in engagement. We are all advocates.
Importantly – Share the game – use a range of channels. Use email, post about it on social media, write a blog, talk about it in a podcast, a newsletter.
At a very practical level – Explore – explore opportunities to use and promote the Game, at the right times – for example existing workplace training sessions, academic training courses, webinars, conferences, internal advertisement boards (physical or virtual) – the list could go on, but this is not just about IPC – explore how to integrate messages!
Endorsements – look for endorsements from leading experts, key opinion leaders and influencers and colleagues who are gamers in your part of the world, in your specialty. Use these trusted influential people to enhance your advocacy and sharing opportunities.
Finally – Feedback – use the in-built mechanism in the Game to provide feedback for ongoing improvement. Always consider at the start of dissemination efforts how you will be able to evaluate efforts and improve as you go along.
From feedback received to date, this Game is welcome and has potential to be an added value product that will enhance the work of its intended target audiences and support behaviour change.
Dissemination for this product didn’t stop on launch day. In order to ensure that the Game is found, known, used and recognized as a key trusted training resource across the world, on-going dissemination and communication is needed to spread the word and share the game.