Tag Archives: quality improvement

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Jolien Vos wins Postgraduate Choice Award at Lincoln Student Union Awards 2015

suawardsJolien Vos, graduate research assistant and PhD student with CaHRU, was winner of the student Postgraduate Choice Award at the University of Lincoln Student Union Awards ceremony on 23 April 2015. The award, sponsored by the Graduate School, is given to individuals who improve the postgraduate learning environment and encourage collaborative, interdisciplinary work.

JolienJolien won the award for being an inspiration to other research students due to the quality and interdisciplinary nature of her work. Jolien has supported other PhD students by co-running, with staff member Kelly Sisson, the successful PhD PALS Scheme. She has also represented the University at a number of external events and conferences, including the internationally renowned Ageing & Society conference, where she won an award in 2014 for her presentation from her doctoral studies on navigating the health care system.

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CaHRU attends regional SAPC meeting at Nottingham University

JolienposterMembers of the CaHRU team, Jolien Vos, Fiona Togher, Despina Laparidou, Viet-Hai Phung, Ana Godoy, Dr Coral Sirdifield, Dr Zahid Asghar and Prof Niro Siriwardena, recently attended the Spring Trent Regional Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC) meeting at the University of Nottingham on 17 March 2015 representing the University of Lincoln. It promised to be an exciting day with CaHRU members giving three oral presentations and four posters.

Coral&AnaposterAn opening keynote by Professor Alan Ford from the University of Nottingham gave an overview of the challenges we face to innovate in teaching and learning. His talk was followed by a series of interesting parallels or the chance to attend a workshop. Parallel session captured research surrounding medical education as well as topics regarding care pathways, responsiveness in primary care and the development of a quality control framework for mobile app based health behaviour change interventions.

Fiona&NiroposterJust before lunch, time was allocated to poster viewing. Despina Laparidou presented a poster on the CADS:E3 study of dementia carers. Fiona Togher presented result from her doctoral work on the development of a prehospital Patient Reported Experience Measure. Ana Godoy and Coral Sirdifield displayed a poster on their analysis of the Quality and Costs of Primary Care (QUALICOPC) study in England, in particular on what patient’s value and what they experience in general practice. Jolien Vos presented the scoping review of her doctoral study on care navigation by older people with multimorbidity in a poster.

DespinaposterThe afternoon began with a keynote from Professor Chris Salisbury from Bristol University, focussing on the redesign of primary health care in the context of multimorbidity. Another series of parallels took place which featured research taking place within CaHRU. Ana Godoy presented a case-control study investigating the association of bisphosphonates and stroke, Coral Sirdifield presented a further analysis of QUALICOPC and Jolien Vos presented a qualitative study of telecare for patients with multimorbidity ongoing research.

The day came to an end with the announcement of the winners of the early career prizes and the CaHRU team looking back on a successful conference.

By Jolien Vos

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EU: FP7 QUALICOPC study shows potential for improving primary care in 34 countries

VTeams from the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL) and the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna have recently published a paper in the WHO Bulletin, ‘Assessing the the potential for improvement of primary care in 34 countries: a cross-sectional survey (Schäfer et al., 2015). The paper was based on data from the Quality and Costs of Primary Care in Europe (QUALICOPC) study, funded by the EU Framework 7 programme, for which data for England were collected by Dr Sirdifield from the Community and Health Research Unit (CaHRU).

Meeting1Schäfer et al’s paper draws on data from questionnaires on patient experiences and values relating to general practice assessing what patients from each of the 34 countries felt there was to improve five aspects of primary care: accessibility, continuity, comprehensiveness, patient involvement in treatment decisions, and doctor-patient communication. Overall, the authors concluded that “accessibility and continuity of care show relatively low potential for improvement, while in many countries comprehensiveness was indicated to be a priority area”. Nine countries had a moderate level of improvement potential for patient involvement in decision-making about treatment but all countries performed well on doctor-patient communication. The UK data indicate low patient-perceived improvement potential across all aspects of care with the exception of ‘comprehensiveness’, which had  moderate potential for improvement.

Desk1The team from CaHRU (Dr Coral Sirdifield, Ana Godoy Caballero, Prof Niro Siriwardena and Dr Karen Windle ) are currently working with colleagues in the College of Social Science (Prof Steve McKay and Dr Christine Jackson) and Nivel (Dr Willemijn Schäfer) to further explore the data for England, investigating how satisfied patients are with primary care by identifying their expectations of care, the extent to which expectations are being met, variations in expectations and experiences, and how patient satisfaction could be improved.

Reference: Schäfer et al., (2015) Assessing the potential for improvement of primary care in 34 countries: a cross-sectional survey, Bull World Health Organ, 93: 161-168. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.14.140368

 

Coral Sirdifield

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CaHRU to contribute to Institute for Healthcare Improvement Web and Action on Improving Prehospital Emergency Care

NProfessor Niro Siriwardena will join Dave Williams and EMS leaders from the United States and abroad, conducting pioneering work in the field of prehospital quality improvement, for an Institute for Healthcare Improvement Web and Action on Improving Prehospital Emergency Care the spring (March and April 2015). The Web and Action will consist of five sessions over the next two months.

NIn Session One, Introduction to Improving Prehospital Emergency Care Systems (Thursday, March 5, 2015, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Eastern Time), David Williams and Kedar Mate will introduce the agenda for the Web & Action Series, providing an overview of the history of ambulance service, the current state of the profession and improvement opportunities for prehospital care. Jerry Overton and Paul Gowens join Session Two, Early Identification of Deteriorating Patients (Thursday, March 19, 20, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET), introduce the concept of early identification, resource allocation, and intervention and present the use of a prehospital early warning score to identify prehospital patients who are deteriorating (e.g., sepsis) to expedite transport, intervention, and emergency department notification.

NProf Niro Siriwardena and Jonathan Studnek present key care pathways for improving core prehospital care processes and outcomes in Session Three, Key Care Pathways – Change Package and Measurement of Time Sensitive Conditions (Thursday, April 2, 2015, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET). They go on to discuss the development of a change package and measurement strategy in the NHS England Ambulance Trusts and profile case examples of improving care reliability in stroke and STEMI in the U.S. and U.K.

NIn Session Four, Prehospital Emergency Care Trigger Tool (Thursday, April 16, 2015, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET), Loua Al Shaikh introduces the concept of trigger tools and the application the prehospital care ecosystem. Finally, Mike Taigman and Brenda Staffan lead Session Five, Paramedic Care in the Community (Thursday, April 30, 2015, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET) where they define the emerging opportunity of utilising paramedics in the community through prevention, partnerships, intervention, and post discharge care.

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CaHRU supports Newham general practices in prescribing safety Quality Improvement Collaborative

ludwiggutmann1Prof Niro Siriwardena spoke at the first engagement event of a new multi-organisational general practice quality improvement collaborative at the Stratford Olympic Park this February. The collaborative led by Professor Martin Marshall and his team at University College London, under the auspices of the Guttmann Academic Partnership launched in 2014, will involve working with NHS Newham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and UCL Partners to support safer prescribing in Newham general practice.

QIlogoProfessor Siriwardena gave an introduction to quality improvement science approaches in his talk ‘How can QI methods in general help to solve these [safety] challenges?’ at the inaugural meeting together with other experts in collaboratives, including Prof Marshall and Dr Neil Houston from NHS Scotland, and local general practitioners. The talk was based on experience from regional and national quality improvement collaboratives such as the Resources for Effective Sleep Treatment project and the Ambulance Services cardiovascular Quality Initiative. Prof Siriwardena has recently been part of a team awarded funding from the Health Foundation for a new regional collaborative aimed at ‘Improving prescribing safety in general practices in the East Midlands through the PINCER intervention.’

Niro@RSM2014._750The engagement event took place at the Sir Ludwig Guttman Health and Well Being Centre situated in the Olympic Park in Stratford, originally designed as the medical practice for the London 2012 Summer Olympics. It was well attended by general practitioners, patients and academic experts supporting the initiative and is part of the impact activity of CaHRU’s new research centre.