Best BMJ Quality & Safety articles 2013

"This special collection reflects the depth and breadth of content from BMJ Quality & Safety, which encourages innovation and creative thinking to improve the quality of health care and the science of improvement."

Articles included in the collection are:

• Identification of doctors at risk of recurrent complaints: a national study of healthcare complaints in Australia
• The global burden of unsafe medical care: analytic modelling of observational studies
• Systematic review of the application of the plan–do–study–act method to improve quality in healthcare
• Assessing adverse events among home care clients in three Canadian provinces using chart review
• 'Care left undone’ during nursing shifts: associations with workload and perceived quality of care
• Allocating scarce resources in real-time to reduce heart failure admissions: a prospective, controlled study
• Culture and behaviour in the English National Health Service: overview of lessons from a large
  multimethod study

BMJ Quality & Safety: A collection of key articles
The Health foundation

April 2014

Read more here.

Application of the plan–do–study–act method to improve quality in healthcare

"There is varied application and reporting of plan-do-study-act cycles and lack of compliance with the principles that underpin its design as a pragmatic scientific method. The varied practice compromises its effectiveness as a method for improvement and cautions against studies that view quality improvement or PDSA as a ‘black box’ intervention."

Systematic review of the application of the plan–do–study–act method to improve quality in healthcare
MJ Taylor, C McNicholas, C Nicolay, A Darzi, D Bell, JE Reed
BMJ Quality and Safety, 2014; 23(4): 290-298

Read more here.