Mary Dixon-Woods Webinar
Please follow this link http://www.health.org.uk/areas-of-work/improvement-science/improvement-science-webinars/ to a webinar on the Health Foundation website. The link is a web presentation by Mary Dixon-Woods, Professor of Medical Sociology, University of Leicester, a leading improvement science researcher and associate editor of BMJ Quality and Safety. She explores how to write up your research/improvement project for publication to increase getting it accepted in by a high impact journals. She offers tips on academic writing and structuring papers and will show how to make your manuscript interesting, engaging, and clear. The Health Foundation is an independent charity working to continuously improve the quality of healthcare in the UK.
SQUIRE Learning Lab at the IHI National Forum, Sunday, Dec 4, 2011
Epistemology of Quality Improvement
After a multiyear planning process, the Vin McLoughlin Colloquium on the Epistemology of Improving Quality convened on 12-16 April 2010 at Cliveden, near London, England. BMJ Quality and Safety released a supplement in April 2011 with articles focused on the outcomes from this conference. This supplement contains articles based on the thinking, the questions, and the dialogue that took place at the meeting as well as conversations that continued between participants after the meeting. Articles describe the planning and development of the colloquium, explore the connection between evidence-based medicine and quality improvement, offer tips for understanding the theory and methods of improvement science, and many, many more. All 24 articles are open access and available here.
2011 International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare April 5-8, 2011
The 2011 International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare, co-sponsored by IHI and the BMJ Publishing Group, will be held April 5-8, 2011, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Open to all, the International Forum is aimed at physicians, nurses, managers, other health professionals, health care leaders, policy makers, researchers, patients, and patients’ representatives. The International Forum will benefit both beginners and those experienced in quality improvement.
For more information please visit their website at: http://internationalforum.bmj.com/
SQUIRE Learning Lab at the IHI National Forum, Sunday, Dec 5, 2010
Come join the SQUIRE faculty team for the learning lab titled, “Prepare your improvement work for publication.” This session focuses on preparation of healthcare improvement work for scholarly publication. Faculty will use the SQUIRE publication guidelines for hands-on writing activities that are unique to scholarly improvement - e.g., project aims, context, results, and limitations. Objectives of the session include: (1) Recognize writing techniques that are particularly applicable to publishable scholarly improvement reports; (2) Sharpen your writing skills; and (3) Understand the role of SQUIRE Guidelines for more successful publication.
Three Questions - A Quick Glimpse Into WHO is Using SQUIRE and WHY - Spring/Summer 2010
Marcia Nelson, MD, is the Vice President for Medical Affairs at Enloe Medical Center in Chico, California. Her primary focus has been the annual Quality Summit, which highlights the past year’s quality improvement successes. Seeing an opportunity to share this information with a broader audience, Dr. Nelson attended the 2009 SQUIRE Guidelines seminar at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement ( www.IHI.org ) National Forum, and her team is using the guidelines to create a variety of materials that engage the medical center, community and others in dialogue about quality medical care.
1. What have you found most interesting about SQUIRE?
The accessibility and clarity of the guidelines are what impressed me the most. I learned about SQUIRE at the 2009 IHI National Forum and left the seminar knowing I had a clear roadmap for organizing and sharing the quality improvement work done at Enloe Medical Center.
2. How has SQUIRE helped in writing about your improvement work?
I used the guidelines to create poster presentation templates for the twenty eight quality improvement projects shared at our April 2010 Quality Summit. The templates queried the presenters on key areas included in the SQUIRE guidelines. This consistent content enhanced the professionalism of the presentations.
3. Has SQUIRE influenced how you plan for future work?
Sharing our quality improvement accomplishments with our community and colleagues has become a key leadership strategy. We will use the SQUIRE guidelines to submit poster presentations for national meetings and we are in the process of creating a case study of our Quality Summit successes. Sharing our stories, with the help of the SQUIRE guidelines, has energized the quality movement at Enloe Medical Center.
Three Questions - A Quick Glimpse Into WHO is Using SQUIRE and WHY - December 2009
Nancy Armistead, MPA is the Executive Director for the Mid-Atlantic Renal Coalition.
Realizing the applicability to their work Nancy and colleagues attended SQUIRE training at IHI last year. Nancy then promoted SQUIRE at a Network training session, one of the Network physicians presented on SQUIRE as a model for development of our QI initiatives. As a result they have submitted a paper for publication using the SQUIRE Guidelines. Here are Nancy's answers to our three questions.
1. What have you found most interesting about SQUIRE?
We appreciate the recognition that research and quality improvement are related but different activities, each with their own merits. We like that SQUIRE provides a framework for the design and reporting of QI projects which allows us to learn from a body of work that was not previously visible.
2. How has SQUIRE helped in writing about your improvement work?
Having a template is helpful in allowing several individuals to effectively work on the write up of a single project and brings consistency to our QI efforts. The framework assures that we're thinking about and addressing all salient components of our project thereby strengthening the overall project design, implementation and learning from experience.
3. Has SQUIRE influenced how you plan for future work?
One of our challenges is the use of evidence based interventions to guide our quality improvement initiatives. We intend to use SQUIRE in project planning, deployment and final reporting moving forward. Not all projects will result in publication, but we'll have comprehensive end of project reports to share with our review boards and funding agency, Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services. We'll use what we learn to plan new quality improvement initiatives.
Three Questions - A Quick Glimpse Into WHO is Using SQUIRE and WHY
Sarah Frazer, BA, BSc, MIHM, FRSA
Dr. Frazer is well known in healthcare for her work on how good practice spreads, how improvements can be made at practitioner level and how organizations and teams can best work together. She is a speaker and workshop presenter and has written numerous papers, articles and guides around the topics of the spread of better practice, complex systems, culture and behavior in organizations, breakthrough collaborative and improvement methodologies, and is the author of "Undressing the Elephant; Why Good Practice Doesn't Spread in Healthcare"
1. What have you found most interesting about SQUIRE
SQUIRE is perhaps not only for writing up completed improvement work. We've been using the guidelines in two proactive ways. One method is at the start of a project to use SQUIRE like a meeting agenda and to work through the topics. The headings enable a comprehensive discussion and more detailed planning than before. They work as excellent reminders for all aspects of improvement project implementation. Another way is to use them as a midway project review. In this case we use them to draft a case study as though the project was completed and we are writing some time after the end. In this way we check progress and do future planning that is more implementation orientated. The process provides insight into work still to be completed if the intended
outcomes are to be achieved.
2. How have the guidelines been helpful in writing about your improvement work?
They provide a comprehensive list of what can be covered. We do have a fair amount of discussion on some items and disagreement as to whether they should be included in the write-up. This is interesting in itself and we usually end up adding the section in after the debate! Where context, history and funding is concerned the guidelines are an excellent step forward in helping those who read the write-ups to understand how applicable the results may be to their own situation. There is some evidence of some projects not wishing to use the guidelines because they appear too onerous. My feeling is this is precisely what the guidelines are intending to resolve - the quick write up that lacks fidelity.
3. Have the SQUIRE guidelines influenced how you plan for future work?
Yes. We use them as a guidelines for improvement project planning. It can be frustrating to get to the end of the project and realize some effort at the start on, for example, addressing ethical issues, would have meant a more efficient and effective process and better outcome. For me personally I am a lot more critical of what I read. I use the guidelines as my benchmark. If improvement reports leave out many of the headings then I ask myself, and others, why the omission and what impact does this have on the result and its generalizability.
“Outstanding SQUIRE Presentation”
Greg Ogrinc, MD, MS, and Kathryn Kirkland, MD, presented Medicine Grand Rounds at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center on Friday, September 11, 2009. The presentation contained an overview of the need for and the development of the SQUIRE guidelines along with an in depth example of using the guidelines to write a paper. The video stream for the presentation is available here: http://www.dhslides.org/mgr/mgr091109f/f.htm
Three Questions - A Quick Glimpse Into WHO is Using SQUIRE and WHY
Neesha Choma, MD
Dr. Choma is a member of the Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine and Public Health at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and on staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Nashville, TN. Dr. Choma recently had a QI paper accepted by Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Here is what she has to say about SQUIRE.
1. What have you found most interesting about SQUIRE?
I like the way SQUIRE guidelines seamlessly merge the elements unique to quality improvement (QI) research with current scientific literary practice. Quality improvement in healthcare is receiving heightened attention as an important practice in care delivery today, yet the intricacies and subtitles of QI research remain unfamiliar to many practicing providers and administrators. As it disseminates and becomes incorporated into the medical community at large, SQUIRE guidelines will help to increase awareness and change general familiarity with QI.
2. How have the guidelines been helpful in writing about your improvement work?
I primarily used SQUIRE guidelines as a checklist. I actually started writing my manuscript before I was aware of SQUIRE and had to resort to extracting recurrent "themes" from existing QI literature to formulate a paper outline. I found out about SQUIRE prior to manuscript submission and used it to refine my paper and ensure that it was thorough and met scientific rigor.
3. Have the SQUIRE Guidelines influenced how you plan for future improvement work?
Definitely. It is extremely helpful to have a set of scientifically based guidelines to refer to as I continue to plan QI work and generate manuscripts. Now that I am aware and familiar with the guidelines, I will use SQUIRE as a starting point when planning QI projects. It will be helpful to ensure various key QI elements are considered, designed, and included early on before unrolling actual interventions.
SPINE Journal Adopts SQUIRE Guidelines
SPINE has joined the leaders in healthcare journals by adopting the SQUIRE Guidelines in their Instructions for Authors. Recognized internationally as the leading subspecialty journal for the treatment of spinal disorders, Spine is a peer-reviewed, bi-weekly periodical that considers for publication original articles in the field of Spine. Spine request in their Instruction for Authors that all manuscripts describing quality improvement studies to follow the Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE) guidelines.
Canadian Journal of Diabetes Endorse SQUIRE
In the Editor's Note, of V32,#4 of the Canadian Journal of Diabetes, Heather J. Dean, MD, FRCPC, Editor-in-Chief stated "The Canadian Journal of Diabetes is proud to be one of the international journals supporting these important new publishing guidelines". She goes on to state "these guidelines will substantially enhance scholarship in the field of QI." Dr. Dean then summarizes her editorial with "The Canadian Journal of Diabetes eagerly awaits authors who submit manuscripts and comply with the SQUIRE Guidelines and, even more fundamentally, who use the guidelines to inform the design of the QUI project they undertake." With that the journal also published the "Development of the SQUIRE Publication Guidelines" in the same journal publication showing their commitment to SQUIRE.
Willkommen SQUIRE!
SQUIRE Guidelines Make International Debut at the 2009 International Forum on Quality and Safety in Berlin Germany
Over 125 interprofessional delegates from around the world participated in a workshop session on the SQUIRE Guidelines. The workshop focused on the development of the guidelines; the details of describing the context of improvement projects; and featured an audience review of a section of a manuscript. This hands-on learning approach to SQUIRE was well received by the participants and felt to be very helpful even ... Wundervoll!