Instructions for Authors
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Manuscript Formatting
Editorial policies
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Peer Review Process
Online First process
Editorial policy
Quality & Safety in Health Care (formerly Quality in Health Care) is a leading international peer review journal in this growing area of quality and safety improvement. It provides essential information for those wanting to reduce harm and improve patient safety and the quality of care. The journal reports and reflects research, improvement initiatives and viewpoints and other discursive papers relevant to these crucial aims with contributions from researchers, clinical professionals and managers and experts in organisational development and behaviour.
The journal covers:
- the development and integration of quality and safety initiatives into routine practice.
- experience of improving practice in all sectors of health care services.
- the influence of management and organisational learning on the quality and safety of clinical care.
- the views of consumers and their role as promoters of improved quality and safety in health care.
- research relevant to health care quality and safety from a wide range of relevant sources including non-medical domains
QSHC aims to contribute actively to the debate about the quality and safety of health care by exploring subjects and ideas (from both routine clinical and managerial practice and research) which concern and inform this debate and which focus on real benefits to patients.
The journal attempts to handle the review process and publication as expeditiously as possible. The review process is usually completed within 4 weeks (mean 20 days), but can take longer in some instances.
Open access/Unlocked articles
Authors are able to make their articles freely available online, immediately on publication, for a fee, using the Unlocked service. This service is available to any author publishing original research in a BMJ Journal for a fee of £1,200(+VAT)/€1,775 (+VAT)/$2,220.
Article types and word counts
- Original articles
- Short reports
- Editorials / Leaders
- Letters to the Editor (original research)
- Correspondence
- Quality Improvement Reports
- Guidelines for reporting more extensive quality research
- Supplements
The word count excludes the title page, abstract, tables, acknowledgements and contributions and the references.
Original articles
Articles report research and studies relevant to quality of health care. They may cover any aspect, from clinical or therapeutic intervention, to promotion, to prevention. They should usually present evidence indicating that problems of quality of practice may exist, or suggest indications for changes in practice, or contribute towards defining standards or developing measures of outcome. Alternatively, they should contribute to developing approaches to measuring quality of care in routine practice. The journal is interprofessional and welcomes articles from anyone whose work is relevant, including health professionals, managers, practitioners, researchers, policy makers, or information technologists.
Word count: up to 2000 words.
Tables/Illustrations: up to 6 tables or illustrations.
Short reports
Shorter practice reports, which may not be original in concept but must contain information sufficiently novel to be of importance to other units, are also invited. Articles of a discursive or debating nature, which do not conform to the criteria for original papers given above, will be considered.
Editorials / Leaders
These are written or commissioned by the editors, but suggestions for possible topics and authors are welcome. Please e-mail suggestions to qshc{at}bmjgroup.com.
Letters to the Editor (original research)
Letters containing original research should be submitted via Bench>Press. They may be published in a shortened form at the discretion of the editor, and must be typed in double line spacing.
Word count: up to 400 words.
References: up to 10.
Correspondence
Letters in response to articles published in the Quality and Safety in Healthcare are welcome and should be submitted electronically via the website. Contributors should go to the abstract or full text of the article in question. At the top right corner of each article is a "contents box". Click on the "eLetters: Submit a response to this article" link. Some letters in response to an article may be published in the print version of the journal.
Letters relating to or responding to previously published items in the journal will be shown to those authors, where appropriate.
Word count: up to 400 words.
References: up to 10.
Quality Improvement Reports
Background
- Outline of problem, e.g.
- What was the problem that was identified for study (problem definition)?
- How was it identified?
- Why was it a priority?
- What were the stated objectives of audit?
- Outline of context (local and wider), e.g.
- Relevant details of local hospital/practice, etc
- Local internal organisation and structures relevant to the problem
- Wider context of the problem
- Outline of staffing arrangements, e.g.
- How staff work together.
Assessment of problems
- Detail of the approach taken with justification, eg
- Criteria based audit/critical incident/routine monitoring/TQM tools and techniques.
- Criteria, standards or guidelines developed, eg
- Who set them and how they were developed?
- Were they considered ideal or realistic?
- Measurement of problem, eg
- How was this done?
- Who did the assessment?
- How was it analysed?
Results of assessment/measurement
- How results were used to understand the problem, eg
- How results were put into local context
- Implications for improving the quality of care
- Implications for change
Strategies for quality improvement/change
- Feeding back information to relevant staff, eg
- How this was done?
- Why was this approach chosen?
- Who was included?
- What was their responses?
- Mechanism for change, eg
- What course of action was taken and why?
- Was this justified by the results and context?
- Discussion of ease of change versus likely effectiveness
- Who was/would be affected by change
Lessons and messages
- What changes occurred?
- If changes did not occur - why not?
- What were the benefits of patients?
- Lessons and messages - for your organisation
- Lessons and messages - for other organisations
- Were benefits sustained?
Guidelines for reporting more extensive quality research
Draft proposed guidelines for stronger quality improvement evidence*
| Item | Paper section | Descriptor and topic |
| 1 | Title and abstract | Indication that this is a quality improvement article |
| Introduction: | ||
| 2 | Background | Current organizational and clinical knowledge about the problem area |
| 3 | Problem | Nature and severity of specific local dysfunction or failure |
| 4 | Purpose of change(s) | Specific aim(s) of proposed changes, i.e. questions to be answered |
| Methods: | ||
| 5 | Setting | Relevant details of geographic location, local organization, staffing |
| 6 | Function | Purpose, processes, and activities of department, team, unit, program |
| 7 | Intervention(s) | Precise details of initial strategy for intended changes/improvement |
| 8 | Measures | Balance of methods used to assess dysfunction/failure and outcomes of changes, including measurement perspective (e.g. patients, staff, administration, cost, etc); methods used to validate measures |
| 9 | Analytical methods | Statistical and time series techniques used; specific software (if any) |
| Results: | ||
| 10 | Situation analysis | Initial assessment of local context of the care system (e.g. specifics of the patient population, local experience with change etc) and how that assessment helped understand the problem |
| 11 | Outcomes | How the initial improvement plan evolved over time (if it did), including alternative change strategies considered and rejected, with reasons; how and why this evolution occurred and who was responsible for it. What effects the changes/improvements actually had on clinical and/or organizational and professional outcomes and processes including benefits, harms, unexpected results, problems, failures. |
| Discussion: | ||
| 12 | Summary | Key findings, lessons learned from evolution of changes, outcomes achieved |
| 13 | Context | Comparison and contrast of results with the findings of others; broad formal review of the literature is desirable |
| 14 | Interpretation | Inferences about mechanisms of changes/improvements, including prior changes, change making in this setting |
| 15 | Limitations | Sources of bias or imprecision; factors affecting generalizability, particularly unique features of local seting, and potential confounders; efforts made to minimize and correct for limitations; effect of limitations on interpretation and application of results |
| 16 | Conclusions | Implications for practice and further study; plans for maintenance of improvement and for follow up to assess maintenance; next steps |
* Although each section of the text of a quality improvement report in the Introduction Methods, Results and Discussion (IMRaD) format (for example, the Introduction) generally needs to contain at least some information about all of the guidelines items listed for that section, individual items from one guideline section are often needed in various sections of the text.
This table has been taken from the article Toward stronger evidence on quality improvement. Draft publication guidelines: the beginning of a consensus project in Quality and Safety in Health Care 2005;14:319-325
Supplements
The BMJ Publishing Group journals are willing to consider publishing supplements to regular issues. Supplement proposals may be made at the request of:
- The journal editor, an editorial board member or a learned society may wish to organise a meeting, sponsorship may be sought and the proceedings published as a supplement.
- The journal editor, editorial board member or learned society may wish to commission a supplement on a particular theme or topic. Again, sponsorship may be sought.
- The BMJPG itself may have proposals for supplements where sponsorship may be necessary.
- A sponsoring organisation, often a pharmaceutical company or a charitable foundation, that wishes to arrange a meeting, the proceedings of which will be published as a supplement.
In all cases, it is vital that the journal’s integrity, independence and academic reputation is not compromised in any way.
For further information on criteria that must be fulfilled, download the supplements guidelines (PDF).
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