Nursing

Service Improvement Tips

General approach

Some students can feel overwhelmed by the scale of the service improvement, but remember that some parts will be similar to other assignments. Try to break the assignment down and follow the tips below:

Keep your improvement in mind 

• Be clear what it is and why it is important. Make sure that it’s a single improvement, not a mixture of different improvements.

• Introduce it before your search so that your lecturer knows why you have carried out the search in that way

• Give a rationale for all your points – show why they matter. Include strengths and weaknesses eg for tools used.

• Include theory (using references) but link it back to your SI – don’t just include lots of theory without relating it to your SI.

• Link any tools or frameworks eg PESTLE and PDSA to your SI – don’t just describe the framework.

References

• You need a lot of references to support your ideas.

• Check that they’re up-to-date, from academic sources

• Don’t use lots of US statistics if they’re not relevant to your SI

• Put your citations at the end of sentences, not in the middle

Structure

• Think about your chapter/section length – combine very short chapters

• Each needs an introduction and a conclusion.

• Think about the flow of your paragraphs – is there a logical order? Describe your search before discussing the results.

• Use the WEED model to introduce points, to improve your paragraph structure

Be concise

• Going over your word-count is a very common problem – students often underestimate how many words they will write in each chapter and so don’t realise how quickly their word-count can be used up.

• Remove duplication – if you’ve said it in one chapter, you don’t need to include it again

• Remove redundant words.

• Is there anything you can put into tables eg your structured search?But check with your supervisor

• Move content to appendices if you can – but check with your supervisor

Signposting

• Make it clear when you’re moving from one section to another eg steps of the PESTLE or PDSA.

Literature review

• Make sure you’re confident how to search (eg Boolean operators) – librarians can help you.

• When reviewing articles, discuss why the chosen articles are relevant to your SI before critiquing each one.

• Don’t spend a lot of time on one article compared with the others.

• Help on literature reviews is available – we have a handout and workshop (but they’re not very different from usual essays – sometimes students become confused and just describe articles in too much detail)

Reflection

• For the criteria ‘Critical reflection on the personal and professional skills required to undertake this review and facilitate the proposed recommendations’ you need to approach this differently from reflection in previous modules.

• You don’t actually carry out the SI, so be careful when using models such as Gibbs.You haven’t got a past experience to look back on.

• Think about it from the SI - what skills would be needed? Do you have them?

Writing style

• It’s an academic piece of work – so the usual academic writing advice applies.

• Proof-read to ensure that your sentences make sense.

• Check that you’ve written in full sentences not sentence fragments (we have a workshop/libguide on sentences).

• Keep your style formal – don’t use slang or contractions (eg can’t), write in the 3^rd person.

You will be required to conduct a structured search to identify relevant literature that relates to or can support your innovation.  You need to think broadly about possible related topics as new innovations will not have been rigorously researched yet.  Think about ‘non-research’ evidence you can use, for example, policy and guidance, audit, patient satisfaction surveys, patient care studies etc

Databases that have research for the service improvement project will vary depending on the innovation you wish to implement.

You are expected to search CINAHL and other appropriate  general Nursing databases which are found on the Finding Journal Articles page. 

Hints on searching CINAHL for your service improvement project can be found in this Video presentation 

Video Presentation 

Further help with using CINAHL  can be found on the guide CINAHL support 

You may find the following databases also useful:

You will be required to conduct a structured search to identify relevant literature that relates to or can support your innovation.  You need to think broadly about possible related topics as new innovations will not have been rigorously researched yet.  Think about ‘non-research’ evidence you can use, for example, policy and guidance, audit, patient satisfaction surveys, patient care studies etc.

There are tools and frameworks that may be useful when planning and evaluating your service improvement. Below are links that can help you to use these tools and frameworks:

• PESTLE/PEST:

  • Clinical Governance: Improving The Quality Of Healthcare For Patients And Service Users

  • CIPD - PESTLE Analysis

  • Rising to the Challenge : A Five Year Strategic Framework for Clinical Services

• PDSA:

  • Utilizing the 3Ms of Process Improvement in Healthcare

  • The Health Care Data Guide : Learning from Data for Improvement

  • Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycles and the model for improvement

  • Quality and Improvement: Theory and Practice in Healthcare

Adapted from: 

Revised Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE 2.0)

September 15, 2015