Scottish Intensive Care Society Prize

A Scottish Graduate Entry Medicine (ScotGEM) graduate, in her first year of foundation, recently won a national prize at the Scottish Intensive Care Society Resident Doctors meeting for her undergraduate final year Healthcare Improvement project. Dr Lydia Arthur's project, undertaken in the Critical Care Unit of Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, looked at the 'daily bloods' taken on the unit. 

Through a process of stakeholder surveys and conversations, and through the use of driver diagrams, Lydia developed an algorithm to help staff to decide which patients needed a Coagulation test each day. After devising this intervention, she then implemented it though staff education sessions and posters and then assessed the change.

The result a significant drop in daily clotting screens done (from 87% to 40%), as well as a large increase in the choice to exclude them (from 12% to 59%). This ensured that the aim of the project was met, with a reduction of 46% of inappropriate clotting screening tests in the Critical Care Unit.

Lydia said 'ScotGEM's teaching regarding QI was invaluable in improving my HCI skills. With projects running from first year with increasing difficulty and both solo and group projects, together with repeated exposure to tools and techniques meant that I was, and still am, very comfortable with the QI tools available'.

ScotGEM aims to produce skilled clinicians who are also 'Agents of Change'. Lydia's project and her ability to influence and bring about positive change in healthcare settings embodies these ambitions.