PONE-D-23-29768Quality Improvement Exercises in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Services: A Scoping ReviewPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Ridsdale,

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: N/A

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors present a very thorough scoping review of published quality improvement interventions in IBD. This expands on a prior work to include pediatric studies and non-American studies, as well as a broader variety of metrics. Bringing all of these studies together is an achievement and worthy of publication. However, the synthesis and "take home messages" from the review could be improved. Most notably, Table 2 needs significant improvement, and the outcomes of unsuccessful interventions need mention.

--The authors refer to the IBD standards, which presumably are the NHS standards. These are likely unfamiliar to most outside the UK. Consider reframing the categorizations to a set of topics that is more universally understood. Alternatively, though less ideally, these should be explained in adequate detail for a reader unfamiliar with the concept to understand their use in the paper.

-- Stratified care is referred to - could the authors clarify why the topics of anemia, PSC and obesity are grouped together under this?

-- The results describe successful interventions, but not those which reported a lack of success. Publication bias notwithstanding, it is worthwhile to understand what hasn't work (rather than just what has).

-- Table 2 is the most important piece of the work, however it is too vague to be helpful to readers looking to understand characteristics of successful interventions. Consider structuring the table such that each intervention category under each problem category has a row. This would allow the measures used to be reported in a new column, and a more detailed description of the intervention for each can be provided. Most crucially, it should be clear exactly what is being improved and how this was accomplished. This table should serve almost as a "standalone" such that a reader would understand much of the paper looking at just this table, though of course should be more digestible than S4

-- S4 should be expanded similarly so that it is clear what is being improved and how, rather than just general categories. The present version is helpful to narrow the selection of papers to look at if interested in a specific metric, but more summary is appropriate.

-- There is a potential missed opportunity in the discussion to translate the results into take home messages for clinicians looking to improve the quality of their center's care. Consider making thematic conclusions about what has worked -- either by type of metric or by type of intervention.

-- A limitation of the work is the search strategy, which may have missed works that were not captured by QI terms, but that were in fact QI studies targeting specific metrics. This is understandable and should be noted as a limitation.

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Reviewer #1: No

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Quality Improvement Exercises in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Services: A Scoping Review

PONE-D-23-29768R1

Dear Dr. Ridsdale,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Valérie Pittet, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: N/A

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: I thank the authors for their extensive efforts at improving the manuscript, particularly because their improvements will make their work much more approachable for teams looking for QI approaches for the IBD population under their care.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

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