Sharing knowledge, saving time: an online toolbox to aid junior doctors

Junior doctors are too often frustrated by not being able to quickly find information for how to make referrals, book investigations and contact other professionals at hospital. To make matters worse, much of the knowledge gained by doctors throughout the year is lost during the August rotation. There is an unmet need for retaining such knowledge, in order to facilitate a smoother and safer handover. We set up the “Doctors Directory” at our trust; a website run by junior doctors, providing specific, up-to-date information relevant to other junior doctors within the trust. Whilst providing day-to-day information, it also contains a “survival guide” for each hospital firm. We surveyed junior doctors before and after the implementation of this site. 81% of FY1s surveyed have used the site. Of the doctors that had used the site, 94% found it helpful with a mean self reported time saving of 39 minutes a day. Whilst still in its infancy, the site now has mobile access, and has an average of 60 hits a day. Quality improvement projects such as this are readily scalable to other hospitals and have enabled junior doctors to waste less time finding how to do jobs and more time actually getting them done.