Trust Specific Lanyard Flashcards

Improving ease of access to trust guidelines amongst junior doctors

Dr Megan Foster, Dr Ryan Beazley

Junior doctors rotate regularly through different hospitals and trusts. We know that guidelines between hospitals differ, which makes keeping up with changes difficult. We recognise that at Musgrove Park Hospital (MPH), juniors are finding the trust approved guidelines difficult to access and understand, resulting in increased use of non-trust guidelines (i.e. google!).

Alterations made to the cards to improve usage: size, content, QR codes. Cards distributed to larger group.

We measured difficulty in both finding and understanding guidelines, rated 1 (easy) to 5 (difficult), alongside the usage of trust/non-trust guidelines per week.

Use

Non-trust guidelines

Our preliminary survey of 24 F1s found that whilst 100% aimed to use trust guidelines at work, 70% found them difficult to access and 50% found them difficult to understand. This led to the average use of nontrust guidelines 3-4 times per week.

Introduction of trust specific lanyard flashcards to 2 F1s, containing 12 topics voted by their peers.

Aims

1.For all F1s at MPH to have easily accessible and comprehensive guidelines by August 2022, as voted by pre and post intervention questionnaires.

2.To reduce use of nontrust guidelines to 0-2 times per week by August 2022.

Outcomes

1. Reduction of difficulty in both accessing and understanding guidelines.

2. Increased confidence amongst juniors, as voted by questionnaire.

3. Reduced use of non-trust guidelines from on average 3-4 times/week to 0-2 times/week.

What We Learnt

1. Feedback suggested F1s were less likely to use the cards as they were ‘too bulky’ and some included useless information.

2. Questions raised as to the reliability of cards once trust guidelines are updated.

NEXT STEPS…

1. Reduce the size of cards and limit information.

2. Include QR codes on each card linking to the most recent guidelines (updated regularly by MPH).

3. Distribute the updated cards to all medical F1s at MPH for PDSA cycle 2.