Vol 3, No 2 (2018)

The theme of this special edition is "innovative ways of gathering feedback from patients to inform design."

While patient data are used in many ways, many opportunities remain for patients to contribute to issues around safety and improving patient care. The author discusses the growing potential for involving patients more in co-designing improvements in care.

Patient narratives can be used to guide improvements in health care. The authors found that including patients and staff on the design team keeps the focus meaningful and ensures that interventions are acceptable and deliverable.

Is pregnancy a good time to promote smoking cessation? The authors provide invaluable lessons from a study that failed to recruit pregnant women who smoke into a smoking cessation intervention.

This study aimed to explore whether the general population can identify a healthy BMI and accurately perceive their own BMI using a visual scale. Overweight people were much less likely to identify their own BMI correctly and were also most likely to incorrectly think that they are a healthy size.

Adding more funding and/or staff does not always improve patient experience. This audit focuses on the benefits of shadowing and an innovative "goShadow" app that provides accurate, quantitative feedback on the patients' care experiences.