The inaugural Health and Care Videos Quality Improvement Project Competition saw an incredible number of quality of applications and projects from across the south-west of England. Junior doctors from eight trusts submitted applications 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. But 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
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 free production of up to 2 pathway videos to support their QIP project, plus a year’s subscription to BMJ Quality and support presenting their projects a conference.
Dr Matthew Halkes, Health and Care Videos Clinical Director 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. After much deliberation an outright winner was chosen but we also felt that there were 3 entries that deserved to be recognised for their efforts so awarded them runners up and will produce their videos too’.
‘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.’
The Winner
The winning entry was from Matthew Cates, Rheumatology, 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. But 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.
Runners Up
Suzi Connor from the
Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital, put forward an idea for a video to improve the provision of 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.
Alexandra Hughes and Anna Perham of Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust want to improve the quality of patient identification from admission to the operating table for elective surgical patients. This would be shown annually to all staff working within the Surgical Directorate, during their mandatory training.
Gayathri Nayar, Julia Vasant and Edward Barton from Bristol Royal Infirmary proposed a short video to improve the way in which junior doctors seek advice from the microbiology service, in order to increase efficiency. The video will be available on the trust intranet and also used in the junior doctor induction.
Since the South West competition was launched Health and Care Videos have had interest from Northern Ireland and Wales to run something similar in their regions and are looking to roll it out nationally, so look out for updates on the progress of this and the completed videos from all the winning entries.
Over the past 4 years, Health and Care Videos have developed a library of 250 videos to help support patients and carers in their treatment pathways. Along the way, we have improved efficiency, increased capacity and delivered cost savings.
