How is innovation achieved in patient safety and quality by individuals in the NHS? Lead: Dr Laura Sheard Collaborators: Dr Cath Jackson (University of York; Valid Research) Patient safety is a key government and NHS concern [8] but little is known about how individuals working within healthcare organisations are able to achieve innovations specific to patient safety and quality. Attempts to improve patient safety within healthcare organisations often rely on identifying when patient safety is compromised via methods such as mortality reviews, audits and incident reporting. Approaches which focus on strengths and resources - looking at why things go right in order to learn from success – are beginning to gain credence. One such approach is that of ‘positive deviance’. Positive deviance has its roots in international public health research but has recently begun to be applied to western healthcare settings to address patient safety topics such as reducing surgical site infections, and the promotion of hand hygiene. Most studies which have identified and conducted work with positive deviants have been focused at the level of the organisation rather than the individual. In this study, our aim was to understand how individuals working within the NHS manage to implement innovations which benefit patient safety. This is one of the first studies to use the positive deviance approach to examine how innovators for quality and safety in the NHS achieve success. Our original research questions were:
Publications: Sheard, L., Jackson, C., & Lawton, R. (2017). How is success achieved by individuals innovating for patient safety and quality in the NHS?. BMC health services research, 17(1), 640. https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12913-017-2589-1 |