Category Archives: News

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CHROMED meeting under the midnight sun

Members of  Community and Health Research Unit (CaHRU), Jo Middlemass (research nurse) and Prof Niro Siriwardena travelled north to Tromsø, Norway, in the Arctic Circle, to discuss progress and the next phase of the European Commission Framework 7 funded study, Clinical tRials fOr elderly patients with MultiplE Disease (CHROMED).

chromed partners at Tromso

CHROMED is an international multicentre randomised control trial in five European countries: United Kingdom, Sweden, Estonia, tromso cathedralSpain and Slovenia, representing different social and organisational contexts in Europe. The study is seeking to investigate the effectiveness of health and lifestyle status management using telehealth to support elderly patients with multiple conditions including chronic obstructive lung disease and chronic heart disease or sleep apnoea. The Lincoln arm of the study, which involves a partnership between Lincoln Community Health Services NHS Trust and CaHRU at the University of Lincoln comprises a feasibility study of five patients followed by a full study involving 32 patients.

tromso midnight sunTromsø in the summer has permanent daylight, which means that after a hard day’s work many local residents and visiting researchers can be seen climbing the local mountains to enjoy the view!

 

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Pre-Hospital Outcomes for Evidence Based Evaluation studies presented at 18th World Congress on Disaster and Emergency Medicine

IMAG0511Fiona Togher, Viet-Hai Phung and Professor Niroshan Siriwardena from CaHRU recently attended the World Congress on Disaster and Emergency Medicine which took place in Manchester on 28th to 31st May 2013. Together with Janette Turner from the University of Sheffield, the group gave three oral presentions on studies from Pre-hospital Outcomes for Evidence Based Evaluation (PhOEBE), a 5-year programme of work funded by the National Institute for Health Research Programme Grants for Applied Research.

Fiona Togher presented a qualitative study, ‘What do service users value about the emergency ambulance service?‘. Viet-Hai Phung presented a ‘Systematic review of pre-hospital outcomes for evidence-based evaluation of ambulance service care’. Finally Janette Turner presented, ‘What outcome measures should be developed for pre-hospital care? Results of a consensus event.’ All three studies sought to identify existing and new outcome (together with process and structural) measures for ambulance services. The presentations were well delivered and received and there were a number of constructive questions and comments from an international audience.

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The day began with a keynote lecture  entitled ‘A Brief History of Resuscitation’. from Professor Douglas Chamberlain, preeminent in and one of the founders of resuscitation medicine in the UK. Professor Chamberlain received the Peter Safar award for his international work in resuscitation. He was also one of the leaders in development of the paramedic role.

 

 

 

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Improvement science and research methods seminars: introduction to Stata

The latest in a series of regular seminars consisted of an introduction to Stata, the widely used software for statistical analysis. The seminar held on 9 April was led by Dr Zahid Asghar, senior lecturer in statistics, and was attended by members of the Community and Health Research Unit.

zahid

The presentation covered basic Stata commands designed to inspect and examine data, before going on to summarise data using simple descriptive statistics. This laid the foundations for future sessions examining regression and more advanced statistical techniques.

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Making an impact: what’s new in prehospital emergency care research

Members of the Community and Health Research Unit (CaHRU) recently attended a one-day prehospital emergency care conference in999EMS Cardiff on 27 February 2013 to present studies on behalf of the study teams and being undertaken as part of the Prehospital Emergency Quality and Outcomes (PEQO) programme of research at CaHRU. The conference was sponsored by the Thematic Research Network for Unscheduled and Trauma care (TRUST), Welsh Ambulance Service Trust and the 999 EMS Research Forum.

Viet-Hai Phung presented posters on  “Leadership, innovation and engagement in quality improvement in the Ambulance Services Cardiovascular Quality Initiative: cross sectional study” and “Prehospital outcomes for ambulance service care: systematic review”. Fiona Togher and Viet-Hai Phung presented a poster on “What do users value about the emergency ambulance service?“.

cardiffProfessor Niro Siriwardena presented one of the four oral presentations selected at the conference on the resuslts from the Ambulance Services Cardiovascular Quality Initiative (ASCQI), “The effect of a national ambulance Quality Improvement Collaborative on performance in care bundles for acute myocardial infarction and stroke”. In the afternoon he also conducted a workshop with Dr Steven Macey on “How to include anonymised routine data in emergency care research”.

The conference was a real success and an important opportunity for team members to meet with other leading prehospital researchers in the United Kingdom.

 

 

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Trent Regional Society for Academic Primary Care conference

A team from the Community and Health Research Unit recently delivered four oral presentations at the Trent Regional Society for Academic Primary Care conference in Sheffield on 5 March 2013.

Dr Zahid Asghar presented research from the IPVASTIA study funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research for Patient benefit programme on “Influenza vaccination and risk of stroke: self-controlled case-series study” which showed a significant reduction in stroke risk associated with influenza vaccination.

Coral Sirdifield presented an international study involving the University of Lincoln and University of Ghent, Belgium on “General practitioners prescribing of benzodiazepines in Western Primary Care: metasynthesis of qualitative studies”. Jo Middlemass presented work from a recently completed study, Exploring social Networks to Augment Cognitive behavioural Therapy (ENACT) funded by the EPSRC, Patients’ and clinicians’ experiences and perceptions of the primary care management of insomnia: qualitative study.

Finally, Fiona Togher presented preliminary findings from a study, “What do users value about the emergency ambulance service?” sphyg1funded by an NIHR Programme Grant for Applied Health Research, Prehospital Outcomes for Evidence Based Evaluation (PhOEBE).

All four members of the team gave excellent presentations and ably responded to questions. The studies involve a range of programmes of work, including studies on the link between influenza and vascular disease, primary care management of insomnia and prehospital outcome measures, led by Professor Niroshan Siriwardena. The next 2014 Trent Regional Society for Academic Primary Care conference will be held in Lincoln, the first time the University of Lincoln will be hosting the event.