The inaugural Health and Care Videos Digital Quality Improvement Project Competition saw an incredible number of entries from across the South West of England. Junior doctors from eight trusts submitted applications for their quality improvement projects to go digital, covering topics ranging from anaesthetics to obstetrics and neonatal ITU.
The quality was so high amongst the many applications submitted that prizes could have been easily awarded to any of the top 10 submissions. In the end, the judges selected one winner and three runners-up from applicants at Derriford Hospital, Royal Devon & Exeter, Plymouth Hospitals Trust and Bristol Royal Infirmary
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Health and Care Videos launched the competition for Junior Doctors in the South West Peninsula to encourage and support the move to ‘digital care’. The judges were looking for quality improvement projects that could:
- Significantly improve patient care or
- Improve the efficiency of a care pathway
The prize for the winning entry was the production of a video to support their QIP project, plus a year’s subscription to BMJ Quality.
The winning entry was from
Matthew Cates from
Rheumatology at Derriford Hospital whose proposal was to deliver a digital education programme for patients who are deemed suitable for their ‘Direct Access’ patient appointment system. Patients need to understand how the system works and how they can access the support available to them. Currently there are over 600 patients waiting for an education session and therefore unable to take advantage of this great service. A simple way to overcome a log jam and make a significant improvement in the quality of care offered to patients was Matt’s two videos ‘
How to use the Rheumatology Direct Access Service’ and ‘
What is rheumatoid arthritis and how is it treated’ which will hopefully help achieve this. Says Matthew about the project ‘
I was really pleased to have won this competition and it’s been a pleasure working with HCV to get the videos produced. Having seen the final version I genuinely believe they can make a real difference to patient knowledge and understanding of our patient initiated appointment system and of rheumatoid arthritis as a whole‘.
Runners up
Alexandra Hughes and Anna Perham, also working at
Derriford Hospital wanted to improve the quality of patient identification from admission to the operating table for elective surgical patients. Their video ‘
Correct Patient, Correct Treatment’ will be shown annually to all staff working within the Surgical Directorate during their mandatory training.
On winning the competition and involved in the production of the video, Anna comments
‘HCV made it really easy for us to produce a professional video. They did all the hard work whilst allowing us to have full control over the content and the message we were sending. It was great fun to work with the production team who were professional and highly skilled, and were more than happy for us be involved in directing the film. I’m excited about patients and staff viewing our video. It is clear that patient safety is at the heart of the film and HCV have done a great job of emphasising this. It looks really genuine and shows scenarios that all members of staff could relate to’.
Dr Matt Halkes, Clinical Director for Health and Care Videos, and Director of Education at the Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust says ‘
We had an overwhelming response to the competition and received some truly innovative and well thought out entries, making our decision to choose a winner incredibly difficult. We are always seeking new and innovative uses for video within health and believe in the power of Junior Doctors to play an important role in implementing quality improvement projects to improve organisational systems.’
Two further runners up were:
Suzy Connor, an ST5 in Emergency Medicine at the
Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital, was one of the runners up with her idea for a video to improve the provision of an adequate and timely analgesia to children in pain, and to ensure the vital signs in children are recorded at triage. The
video will be shown at staff induction, and throughout the year at doctor and nurse education events.
Gayathri Nayar, Julia Vasant and
Edward Barton from
Bristol Royal Infirmary proposed a short video
‘How to obtain treatment advice from Microbiology’ to improve the way in which junior doctors seek advice from the microbiology service, in order to increase efficiency. The video will be incorporated into the Trust’s guidelines on their intranet site, sent out to doctors on the wards and used in the induction programme. Evaluation on the impact of the video will be done through an audit on the number and quality of calls before and after the video has gone live.
Further to the success of the South West competition, we are looking to roll out the Quality Improvement Competition nationally, so look out for updates on the progress of this event due to be launched in the Autumn.
The winning entry was from Matthew Cates from Rheumatology at Derriford Hospital whose proposal was to deliver a digital education programme for patients who are deemed suitable for their ‘Direct Access’ patient appointment system. Patients need to understand how the system works and how they can access the support available to them. Currently there are over 600 patients waiting for an education session and therefore unable to take advantage of this great service. A simple way to overcome a log jam and make a significant improvement in the quality of care offered to patients was Matt’s two videos ‘How to use the Rheumatology Direct Access Service’ and ‘What is rheumatoid arthritis and how is it treated’ which will hopefully help achieve this. Says Matthew about the project ‘I was really pleased to have won this competition and it’s been a pleasure working with HCV to get the videos produced. Having seen the final version I genuinely believe they can make a real difference to patient knowledge and understanding of our patient initiated appointment system and of rheumatoid arthritis as a whole‘.
Runners up Alexandra Hughes and Anna Perham, also working at Derriford Hospital wanted to improve the quality of patient identification from admission to the operating table for elective surgical patients. Their video ‘Correct Patient, Correct Treatment’ will be shown annually to all staff working within the Surgical Directorate during their mandatory training. 
On winning the competition and involved in the production of the video, Anna comments ‘HCV made it really easy for us to produce a professional video. They did all the hard work whilst allowing us to have full control over the content and the message we were sending. It was great fun to work with the production team who were professional and highly skilled, and were more than happy for us be involved in directing the film. I’m excited about patients and staff viewing our video. It is clear that patient safety is at the heart of the film and HCV have done a great job of emphasising this. It looks really genuine and shows scenarios that all members of staff could relate to’.
Dr Matt Halkes, Clinical Director for Health and Care Videos, and Director of Education at the Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust says ‘We had an overwhelming response to the competition and received some truly innovative and well thought out entries, making our decision to choose a winner incredibly difficult. We are always seeking new and innovative uses for video within health and believe in the power of Junior Doctors to play an important role in implementing quality improvement projects to improve organisational systems.’
Two further runners up were:
Suzy Connor, an ST5 in Emergency Medicine at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital, was one of the runners up with her idea for a video to improve the provision of an adequate and timely analgesia to children in pain, and to ensure the vital signs in children are recorded at triage. The video will be shown at staff induction, and throughout the year at doctor and nurse education events.
Gayathri Nayar, Julia Vasant and Edward Barton from Bristol Royal Infirmary proposed a short video ‘How to obtain treatment advice from Microbiology’ to improve the way in which junior doctors seek advice from the microbiology service, in order to increase efficiency. The video will be incorporated into the Trust’s guidelines on their intranet site, sent out to doctors on the wards and used in the induction programme. Evaluation on the impact of the video will be done through an audit on the number and quality of calls before and after the video has gone live. 
Further to the success of the South West competition, we are looking to roll out the Quality Improvement Competition nationally, so look out for updates on the progress of this event due to be launched in the Autumn.
