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Improvement Science and Research Methods seminar: Dr Matthew Harris on ‘Frugal and reverse innovation’

CaHRU_logotypeThe latest Community and Health Research Unit (CaHRU)/Lincoln Institute for Health (LIH) Improvement Science and Research Methods seminar was given on April 24th 2018 by Dr Matthew Harris, Clinical Senior Lecturer in Public Health, jointly appointed between the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, and the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London. He is also an Honorary Consultant in Public Health Medicine at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

matthewharrisDr Harris worked for several years as a primary care physician in Brazil, as a WHO Polio Consultant in Ethiopia, as an HIV Technical Consultant in Mozambique and as a Global Health Advisor to the UK Department of Health. In 2014 he was awarded a prestigious Harkness Fellowship from the US Commonwealth Fund where he was a Visiting Research Assistant Professor at New York University, exploring cognitive biases in evidence interpretation in the context of Reverse Innovation.

indiaHe explained the concept of frugal innovations, usually low cost, often repurposed technologies, developed for resource-poor settings such as developing country health systems but increasingly relevant in the context of worsening resource constraints in Western health settings. The concept of frugal innovations is becoming important in the UK, where there is an imperative to identify those innovations that may perform equally but at lower cost. Bringing these frugal innovations from low-income countries into the NHS (so-called ‘reverse innovation’) is an emerging field in which Dr Harris is an acknowledged expert.

LIFH-logo-web2In his excellent and thoughtful seminar, Dr Harris discussed examples of frugal innovations such as a low cost portable ECG machine or cataract surgery delivered on a large scale in India, a new orthopaedic drill cover created in Africa, and a community health worker programme in Brazil. He also explored the challenges and barriers to identifying, adapting and adopting frugal innovations, touching on a diversity of literatures including diffusion of innovation, cognitive psychology and post-colonialism.

Prof Niro Siriwardena

[su_document url=”https://communityandhealth.dev.lincoln.ac.uk/files/2018/04/FrugalandReverseInnovation_April2018.pdf” width=”660″ responsive=”no”]Multi-morbidity, goal-oriented care, the community and equity[/su_document]

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CaHRU attends 999 EMS Research Forum conference 2018 in Stirling

999EMSpreconferenceThis year’s annual EMS 999 Research Forum, ‘Research for impact in 999 Emergency Care’ was held in the University of Stirling’s picturesque campus from 26-27 March 2018 and was attended by members of CaHRU, Viet-Hai Phung, Laura Simmons, Greg Whitley and Professor Niro Siriwardena. The preconference sessions included two workshops: Professor Rowena Murray from the University of the West of Scotland led a session on how to write a peer reviewed paper; the other session involved CaHRU’s Professor Niro Siriwardena, with Professor Helen Snooks from the University of Swansea and Roy Norris from Service Users for Primary and Emergency Care Research (SUPER), leading a session on designing and planning research projects and getting them funded.

999EMSShona Robison, the Cabinet Minister for Health and Sport in the Scottish Government introduced the start of the second day. This started with presentations on research that makes a difference and the links between prehospital research and Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA). There then followed a series of four oral presentations, which included a sensitive one from Kelly Hird and Fiona Bell from Yorkshire Ambulance Service about suicide among ambulance staff, and Belinda Flanagan, from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, who presented her work on unplanned births in paramedic care.

vhp2There was a CaHRU representation in the post-lunch poster session with Viet-Hai Phung presenting on the ‘Perceptions and experiences of community first responders on their role and relationships: qualitative interview study’, Rob Spaight from East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust presenting work led by Dr Murray Smith on ‘Modelling of patient outcomes after emergency treatment for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest by paramedics and community first responders’ and Prof Niro Siriwardena presenting an interview study led by Dr Stephanie Armstrong of paramedics’ perceptions of the ethics of ambulance-based trials. Last year’s prize winner, Dr Edward Duncan, from Stirling University, subsequently recounted his experience of presenting at the Paramedic Australasia International Conference.

999EMSpanelThe final substantive session of the conference was a lively and thought-provoking panel discussion which included Janette Turner from the University of Sheffield and Professor Niro Siriwardena, on future priorities for prehospital research. The conference closed with a prize giving session for some excellent presentations and posters that were given throughout the conference.

By Viet-Hai Phung

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Improvement Science and Research Methods seminar: Introduction to systematic grounded theory

CaHRU_logotypeThe latest Community and Health Research Unit(CaHRU)/Lincoln Institute for Health (LIH) Improvement Science and Research Methods seminar was given on April 11th 2018 by Dr Julie Pattinson, a research assistant working in CaHRU.

JuliePattinsonJulie’s talk, entitled ‘Introduction to Systematic Grounded Theory’, focused on the main principles of using grounded theory to collect and analyse data. Julie started the seminar by giving an overview of her PhD study, investigating gambling behaviour in British older adults, and how she employed grounded theory to analyse her results. Julie then discussed the origins of using this approach and its main uses. She also explained the concept of theoretical sampling, the data collection processes and what constitutes data saturation in grounded theory. Julie also discussed data analysis using axial coding, and finished her seminar by considering the main limitations of using grounded theory.

LIFH-logo-web2The seminar was very well received and provided an excellent introduction to the analysis of qualitative data using systematic grounded theory. The next Improvement Science and Research Methods seminar on the topic of “Frugal Innovations in Healthcare” will be presented by Dr Matthew Harris from Imperial College, London, will take place in April 24th 2018.

[su_document url=”https://communityandhealth.dev.lincoln.ac.uk/files/2018/04/SGT_Pattinson.pdf” width=”660″ responsive=”no”]Multi-morbidity, goal-oriented care, the community and equity[/su_document]

By Despina Laparidou

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CaHRU team at Imperial College London for international partnership to improve primary care with South Asia

icl_cahruMembers of the Community and Health Research Unit, Dr Stephanie Armstrong, Dr Murray Smith, Professor Graham Law and Professor Niro Siriwardena attended a week long meeting with colleagues from Imperial College London (Professor Azeem Majeed, Dr Matthew Harris, Dr Yasser Bhatti, Dr Mala Rao, Professor Peter Childs and Professor James Barlow), Sri Lanka (Drs Rivaiz Haniffa and Dr Sajeeva Ranaweera, University of Colombo), Pakistan (Dr Asim Mahmood of Integrated Health Services) and Bangladesh (Dr Foysol Chowdhury of BRAC) to develop a collaboration exploring frugal innovation and quality improvement in primary care in middle income countries in South Asia.

The meeting consisted of seminars, presentations and discussions on the current systems of primary care in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, other countries such as Brazil, and the United Kingdom, those systems being developed to improve care, how we could introduce frugal low cost innovations to enhance care in low and middle income countries and how these innovations could be introduced into the UK through ‘reverse innovation’. There were also presentations on research ethics and intellectual property.

taj2During the week’s meeting professor Siriwardena was invited to give a presentation on his work on quality improvement, specifically on ‘Quality Improvement Collaboratives: theory, design and effects’. This summarised work on three large scale QICs, Resources for Effective Sleep Treatment (REST), the Ambulance Services Cardiovascular Quality Initiative (ASCQI) and Scaling up PINCER, a pharmacist intervention to reduce clinically important prescribing errors in primary care, all funded by the Health Foundation and the last also co-funded by East Midlands Academic Health Science network. The talk developed the idea that collaboratives had different purposes and that syntheses should take this into account.

The meeting finished with partners agreeing to work together in future, support each other on the need to develop primary care and to implement frugal innovations as part of quality improvement initiatives in the countries involved.

By Professor Niro Siriwardena

[su_document url=”https://communityandhealth.dev.lincoln.ac.uk/files/2018/03/QICs_ICSiriwardena.pdf” width=”660″ responsive=”no”]Multi-morbidity, goal-oriented care, the community and equity[/su_document]