PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Rob Bethune AU - Kate Campbell AU - Alex Rose AU - Richard Wassall AU - Catherine Price AU - Thomas Siese AU - Roisin Finn AU - Sean Whitaker TI - Improving weekend handover between junior doctors on medical and surgical wards AID - 10.1136/bmjquality.u483.w1045 DP - 2014 Jan 01 TA - BMJ Quality Improvement Reports PG - u483.w1045 VI - 2 IP - 2 4099 - http://bmjopenquality.bmj.com/content/2/2/u483.w1045.short 4100 - http://bmjopenquality.bmj.com/content/2/2/u483.w1045.full SO - BMJ Qual Improv Report2014 Jan 01; 2 AB - Poor weekend handover has been implicated as one of the causes of observed higher mortality rates at weekends in UK hospitals. In a large teaching hospital we, a group of junior doctors, set about improving the quality and effectiveness of weekend handover. We used the Model for Improvement to implement a weekend handover sticker through an iterative process using multiple Plan/Do/Study/Act (PDSA) cycles. Over the 16 week study period the number of completed weekend tasks increased by 30% and the number of patients with a documented weekend handover increased by nearly 50%. Junior doctors are well positioned to notice the quality and safety shortcomings within hospitals, and by using effective improvement methods they can improve these systems at little or no cost.