Congratulations on embarking on a Quality Improvement (QI) project. As you start to come towards the end of your QI project you may wonder what’s next and start to think about sharing your project with a wider audience. Creating and presenting a poster about your project may be something that you are considering, for instance at the Bristol Patient Safety Conference or Patient Safety Congress. We’ve pulled together these free resources to help support you as you create your poster.
Our three key takeaway messages are:
- Putting together a poster takes time, you will want input from your whole project team, you may want to develop specific images/graphics and you may need to print the poster, so don’t leave it to the last minute!
- Check if your work is an improvement project or not, if your project is audit or research, it’s unlikely to be suitable at an improvement conference, use this decision chart to check what type of project you are working on.
- Make sure these three elements of your project are clear and standout to the reader: the aim, the interventions (what did you change? Your PDSA cycles!) and the results of those changes.
Tips from a QI poster judge
To understand more about what judges are looking for in an improvement poster watch this short video from Kay Haughton, Director of Services and System Transformation, West of England AHSN.
What should you consider when making a QI poster?
We’ve sourced and summarised the wisdom from lots of experienced QI poster-making gurus. If you can’t answer the following questions then our cheat sheet is for you:
- What are the submission instructions from the conference?
- What are your key messages?
- What should you include on your poster?
- What is the format of the poster?
- How to prepare for presentation
Download our cheat sheet of things to consider when making a QI poster
Example layouts
Using your creativity and design skills can ignite QI posters and we recommend that you add your own stamp on your QI poster with colour, imagery and layout. However, we appreciate that knowing where to start can be hard. We’ve prepared some example layouts with guides on font size and topics to be included.
How to incorporate infographics
Communicating the impact of your project can be difficult, so instead of presenting only graphs and results tables, why not convert some of your data into an infographic instead? Join Sarah Egerton, Communications Officer, West of England AHSN as she provides guidance on making infographics, gives examples of infographics and shows you how to source pictures for your poster.
Why don’t you take a look at these improvement posters for some inspiration?
- View the full size PERIPrem Poster (West of England AHSN collaborative project)
- More examples of improvement posters can be found here.
Why not take a look at our free range of West of England Academy improvement and innovation guides, toolkits and videos.
We also host a wide range of free West of England Academy events and training opportunities.
If you would like guidance on the use of these resources or have suggestions, questions or want to discuss your project, please email weahsn.academy@nhs.net
