St George's QI Project Database

At St George's we have attempted to improve the visibility and transparency of departmental Quality Improvement (QI) projects by creating an open access database. Our goal was to create a live record of active projects within the department which could be used to:

• Connect colleagues with similar QI interests
• Track the status of recurring projects
• Prevent duplication of work
• Ultimately be used to identify the QI needs of the department.

We created a live database using spreadsheet software that is freely available via Google docs. We elected to permit editors rights to anybody with the share link to minimise structural barriers to engagement, and to avoid the necessity of a database curator to vet and upload projects. We found that permitting anybody to edit the database empowered users to define how the resource was used, and in doing so fostered engagement and a sense of ownership within the department. Backups are automatically generated by the software which allows us to safely restore historic versions of the database if any errors are noted or if the base file becomes corrupted. QR codes linking to the resource were distributed through departmental WhatsApp groups, stored on the departmental shared drive, and printed on posters throughout the department.

Since the development of this resource it has been accessed by over 100 users, nearly half of which contributed to editing. Informal and formal feedback has been positive with the primary perceived advantage cited as greater departmental cohesion on QI work. In future we hope to use this resource to identify quality matrices that are not being examined, and perhaps to track ACSA standards, allowing the department to appraise and amend its QI priorities in real time. As this project continues we anticipate the main challenge will be to ensure that the database remains up to date as the primary benefits of the resource rely on this. 

A blank template of the database that you can download and adapt to your department's requirements can be found here>>>

If you have any questions or would be interested in sharing learning, please get in touch with qualityimprovement@rcoa.ac.uk and the College's QI Team can put you in touch with Dr Oddy.