Improving the Efficiency of Task Completion and Time Management for Surgical Junior Doctors during their Surgical Foundations Rotations/Placements

Task completion and time management for surgical junior doctors during their surgical foundation trainings and placements were investigated amidst techniques for improvement and efficient service delivery in the big health facility setting in East and North Herts NHS Trusts by us, a group of medical scientists. The factors reducing and impeding efficient service delivery were presented which included lack of organisational equipment and availability leading to delayed job completion and patient output.

Introduction: Patient safety and the quality of patient-centred care provided are of utmost importance. Quality improvement projects in surgery are vital as we can highlight and rectify issues that may arise through them. We determined that a critical problem lies in the inefficiency of job performance among surgical junior doctors due to a lack of equipment organisation and availability. This inefficiency results in a delay in job completion and potentially poor patient outcomes. Surgical junior doctors are becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack of availability and organisation of equipment required to perform urgent and non-urgent patient care during their shifts. Through our detailed research, we aimed to improve the efficiency of surgical junior doctors’ task completion by reducing the time required for completion of tasks through the production of surgical equipment packs to improve equipment availability and accessibility to facilitate efficient urgent and non- urgent patient care.

Methodology: We collected data via analysis and evaluation of responses from initial and post- implementation surveys sent to surgical junior doctors working across a range of specialities and different NHS trusts around the country.

Results: The initial survey demonstrated that most of the time taken for task completion was spent on sourcing/gathering equipment. The post-introduction of surgical equipment packs survey indicated that over 80% of the responders found them helpful in carrying out practical jobs. More than 60% of responders reported that 0-10 minutes are needed to complete practical employment with the help of surgical equipment packs. Comparatively, only 30% could complete practical tasks within 20 minutes before implementation.

Conclusion: Results showed that surgical have improved equipment accessibility and, overall, improved task completion efficiency. 80% of responders would continue using surgical equipment packs to improve efficiency in ward-based practical jobs.

Categories: Quality Improvement, Surgery, Surgical Equipment