awards case study
Health sharing F
ront line healthcare professionals are often unsure of their role in improving quality and how to influence change. However quality improvement is now becoming part of the
training and ongoing assessment for healthcare professionals. This means that increasingly doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals worldwide will be required to engage with activities and projects that improve healthcare quality and safety. This should make a real difference to patients. However, there are massive gaps and inconsistencies in standards, training, activity levels and outcomes. Many managers are primarily concerned with efficiencies, providing value and reducing costs. Clinicians and other healthcare professionals have very little knowledge or expertise in this field which makes quality improvement a complex challenge for healthcare internationally. Frontline staff, such as hospital porters or catering managers, and even patients themselves can often have the biggest impact on quality improvement, but have seldom been influential before this innovative approach from the British Medical Journal (BMJ). The BMJ has been an important vehicle for sharing knowledge and best practice amongst healthcare professionals, but the time and rigours of the publishing process has meant that smaller or less ‘academic’ quality improvement projects often go unfinished, unrecorded or are undertaken in isolation.
The learning solution To address this issue, the BMJ developed a flexible and comprehensive programme to support those undertaking healthcare quality improvement projects – often they were doing so for the first time. Project teams are helped to select a project, guided through the process, and encouraged to complete and write up their project. Learning, mentoring and opportunities for collaboration and publication are all combined in the BMJ programme, with over 200 projects completed to date in hospitals and healthcare centres up and down the country. The BMJ Quality Improvement Reports journal aims to publish a high volume of quality improvement reports to help healthcare professionals document and share innovations and excellence in care. Five core needs were identified:
1. Help identify need for improvement 2. Find out how others did it – and what didn’t work 3. Support step-by-step through the improvement process 4. Obtain advice from mentors, experts and the global community 5. Publish and share work Two programme types were offered: BMJ Quality Essentials offer:
n A step by step framework for making improvements to clinical practice;
n The opportunity to connect with other users and work collaboratively;
n An option to appoint a clinical mentor to specific projects; n Access to exclusive BMJ Learning modules, tools and webinars which will help users with their project and contribute to their continuing professional development;
Genny Dixon looks at how healthcare staff can learn about quality improvements and share their innovations
BMJ Quality won gold for the most innovative new learning product in the 2014 E-Learning Awards.
n The ability to publish completed projects in the online, open access BMJ Quality Improvement Reports journal; n Access to a global improvement community through the ‘My Community’ area.
BMJ Quality Premium offers access to a pre written library
of Quality Improvement Project Guides (QIPs). These projects are designed and peer reviewed by world-renowned subject experts. This gives users confidence to implement their quality improvement goals straight away. They are also ideal for those who want to engage in healthcare improvement but have difficulty in defining a project. Projects cover topics as diverse as palliative care for dementia patients, management of acute pain in children and smoking cessation. Many of the premium modules also lead to accreditation.
Supporting learners In addition to relevant certificated learning modules from BMJ Learning, learners have access to a range of specific guidance and resources such as letter templates, presentations and tools to enable the design and implementation of effective change cycles. The platform also provides the latest evidence and guidelines, together with case examples, videos, articles and useful tools to help them on their improvement journey. Learners also have access to healthcare improvement and clinical experts who can help them through mentoring, webinars and the online community. They also receive valuable feedback from peer reviewers/editors on their submissions to the journal.
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e.learning age september 2015
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