Quality improvement reports: a new kind of article

They should allow authors to describe improvement projects so others can learn

Education and debate p 1460

Today we publish our first quality improvement report (p 1460).1 It shows how a group from Paris managed to improve the management of pain in patients after surgery by switching them early from intravenous to oral acetaminophen. The report uses a structure (box) that we have copied with permission from the journal Quality in Health Care.2 One of the best ways to improve your journal—or anything—is to keep scanning your environment for good ideas and then copy them.

Those who work in quality improvement in health care have a poor record in publishing …