Plan Health Faire: An educational game to understand the challenges of sustainable development applicable to health

The educational game “Plan Health Faire” helps to understand the basic issues of sustainable development applied to health. It provides tools for taking action within the organization, rethinking one’s professional practice and contributing to the control of environmental, climatic, societal and health risks.

An initiative resulting from a university partnership

This game was co-created by Jeremy Gehenouk, assistant pharmacist at a university hospital and head of the medical unit EVARISQ (Managing Risks for Care and Sustainable Development in Health) of the Public Health Service at CHU in Poitiers, and Lea Boassinou, hospital pharmacist at Omedit Ile-de-France. The creators met during a university degree (DU) “Sustainable development from concept to practice of care” pursued in 2020-2021 at the Sorbonne Medical University. They noted that the issue of sustainable development was an emerging issue in healthcare organizations but, for all that, training was, if not inadequate, then in no way heterogeneous for healthcare professionals. “93% of participants in our Health Faire training plan have not received any training at all in sustainable development” Jeremy Gehenock says. Their idea was to create an interesting and innovative training, based on a real scientific tool so that all professionals working in health institutions, regardless of their status or training, can be aware of the issue of sustainable development. They can think of actions that have already been implemented or that could be implemented within their departments and organizations. “There are three objectives for this training, first of all to understand the issues raised by sustainable development; then to unite all stakeholders and that is why it is aimed at an audience among professionals; and finally to act: after making an inventory, propose actions within my structure, my department or my department.

A game aimed at all players in the health field

This tutorial takes 2 hours and the number of participants can range from 8 to 35. The game takes place in three phases with the briefing explaining the progress, the game phase where the entire seven thematic modules will be revealed and where the links between and within the modules are established, and finally the debriefing , which will instead focus on the action plan that can be drawn up from the state of the places created during the game phase. The modules being Climate Change, Sustainable Development, Hospital and Operating Room, Water and Environmental Health, and Users are designed to move from the most universal to the closest to the service or individual. “On the topic of sustainable development, we evoke the goals of sustainable development on an international scale and then talk, for example, about medicines and medical devices or waste management within the operating room (and therefore to other services), which is as close as possible to the daily life of the participants ». With a pedagogy based on the expression of images, it is a collaborative game based on the expertise, experience and suggestions of the participants. It is therefore intended for everyone, in both initial and continuing education. It is a game for all players in the field of health that can be played in health institutions but also within regional health agencies, universities and training institutes or in the context of health conferences, as was the case during the Regional Sustainable Health Day. In New Aquitaine or at the HappyDoc symposium at the University of Poitiers. ” We received very positive feedback because over 90% of the participants said they would recommend it to their colleagues and 75% thought it would change their daily practice.”

evolution perspective

Since October 2021, Jeremy Gehenok and Lia Boacino have been leading courses with only two prototypes created as part of depleted uranium. It’s only 1 year ago^Verse As of September 2022, they now have around twenty toys that have been printed by a certified environmentally responsible French printer and whose boxes have been produced by ESAT Essor in Poitiers. Thanks to this development, Jérémy Guihenneuc would like to be able to offer work sessions to professionals from the University Hospital of Poitiers of the Public Health Service of Vie la Santé, on a regular basis in free slots that can be adapted both to professionals during the working day but also at night and at intermittent hours. Continuing education on sustainable development in health is also included in CHU’s 2023 Continuing Education Catalog, which will include the game health plan do To introduce the training day. In addition, the co-authors want to promote this game within their organization, in the regions of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Ile-de-France and then at the national level. “For further development we will have to work on two pillars, namely the training of facilitators in order to create a network of professionals throughout the territory because, so far, the only two people who can lead workshops and fundraisers are able to launch large-scale production of toy boxes while respecting an environmentally responsible approach ».

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