Search results

Within the “wicked” concept of ageing, this paper aims to primarily model an integrated approach to identifying and evaluating opportunities that deliver innovative outcomes in Ageing Well Practice, Health and Economic Policy and Research Actions using a collaborative and entrepreneurial mindset. The strategic focus is on a “Boomer” (user)-driven and facilitated Network – that brings together health professionals, research specialists, technologists, ageing well providers, “encore” career specialists, life-style providers, community groups, wealth creation specialists and industry innovators to streamline the progression of identified concepts to valued users and markets and enhance the economy.

Using the unit of analysis for innovation, i.e. the “added-value” as perceived by the user and not simply a product or a technology, the identified “opportunity-outcome” will embed a new service concept or intervention, which embraces and promotes ageing well, independent living or resident-centred care in the community and delivers direct and indirect economic benefits.

The authors model a point of differentiation in facilitating existing ageing well policies in the community, through a focus on an integrated and multi-dimensional collaborative framework that can deliver user value and contributes to community and economic benefits.

Generalising results without a commercial business case from this single strategic viewpoint requires caution. The positive outcomes from this innovation collaborative concept can be used to guide further policy development and business investment in ageing well needs.

Such an integrated innovation collaborative structure provides the capacity to identify ageing well opportunities, to contract enterprises, both SMEs’ and larger companies, for development of the opportunities into user-valued outcomes, to network venture resources and deliver these outcomes to a sustainable market of ageing well citizens.

The Ageing Well Innovation collaborative framework identifies practical ways to integrate new concepts of ageing participation to be realised by the increasing number of “Boomers”. It provides a self-managing process for linking individuals, public and private parties to maximise information and ideas flow, and engagement of the skilled resources in the Boomer group.

The innovation collaborative structure proposed is not simply novel but is a targeted focus on entrepreneurship and innovation applied strategically to the needs of ageing boomers and community needs. The added-value is in the demonstrated enhancement to effective innovation outcomes in community ageing and the economy.

Considerable interest has been aroused concerning the West Dorset Health Authority′s approach to the setting of standards. There is a great deal of commitment both to the process and to the standards themselves. Setting standards involves not only the nursing staff but includes many other clinical and non‐clinical disciplines. Medical staff are becoming involved contributing to the process in their domains and those of others. The article has been written in response to many requests for information about the process. For those who want to try it out under guidance, a series of short seminars is being arranged in conjunction with Mercia Publications who are based on the Science Park at the University of Keele.

Explores the history of quality management, commenting on the work of many of the quality “gurus”. Considers the relationship between quality management and the management science of operational research.

A glossary of terms and definitions relating to the fields of quality and customer care, exemplified by reference to health care.

The purpose of this paper is to explore what happens when changes to clinical practice are proposed and introduced in healthcare organisations. The authors use the implementation of Treatment Escalation Plans to explore the dynamics shaping the translational journey of a complex intervention from research into the everyday context of real-world healthcare settings.

A qualitative instrumental collective case study design was used. Data were gathered using qualitative interviews (n = 36) and observations (n = 46) in three English acute hospital trusts. Normalisation process theory provided the theoretical lens and informed data collection and analysis.

While each organisation faced the same translational problem, there was variation between settings regarding adoption and implementation. Successful change was dependent on participants' ability to manage and shape contexts and the work this involved was reliant on individual capacity to create a new, receptive context for change. Managing contexts to facilitate the move from research into clinical practice was a complex interactive and iterative process.

The paper advocates a move away from contextual factors influencing change and adoption, to contextual patterns and processes that accommodate different elements of whole systems and the work required to manage and shape them.

The paper addresses important and timely issues of change in healthcare, particularly for new regulatory and service-oriented processes and practices. Insights and explanations of variations in implementation are revealed which could contribute to conceptual generalisation of context and implementation.

Patient safety remains a top priority in healthcare. Many organizations have developed systems to monitor and prevent harm, and have invested in different approaches to quality improvement. Despite these organizational efforts to better detect adverse events, efficient resolution of safety problems remains a significant challenge. The authors developed and implemented a comprehensive multimodal patient safety improvement program called SafetyLEAP. The term “LEAP” is an acronym that highlights the three facets of the program including: a Leadership and Engagement approach; Audit and feedback; and a Planned improvement intervention. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the implementation of the SafetyLEAP program in the intensive care units (ICUs) of three large hospitals.

A comparative case study approach was used to compare and contrast the adherence to each component of the SafetyLEAP program. The study was conducted using a convenience sample of three (n=3) ICUs from two provinces. Two reviewers independently evaluated major adherence metrics of the SafetyLEAP program for their completeness. Analysis was performed for each individual case, and across cases.

A total of 257 patients were included in the study. Overall, the proportion of the SafetyLEAP tasks completed was 64.47, 100, and 26.32 percent, respectively. ICU nos 1 and 2 were able to identify opportunities for improvement, follow a quality improvement process and demonstrate positive changes in patient safety. The main factors influencing adherence were the engagement of a local champion, competing priorities, and the identification of appropriate resources.

The SafetyLEAP program allowed for the identification of processes that could result in patient harm in the ICUs. However, the success in improving patient safety was dependent on the engagement of the care teams.

The authors developed an evidence-based approach to systematically and prospectively detect, improve, and evaluate actions related to patient safety.