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The purpose of this paper is to address a significant public mental health disparity affecting American Indians/Alaska Natives (AI/ANs): the shortage of clinical trials research analyzing the benefits of AI/AN traditional-based treatments, e.g. drumming.

A total of four focus groups were conducted among outpatient and inpatient AI/AN substance abuse patients and providers serving AI/ANs. The purpose of these focus groups was to obtain insights relating to the recent challenges of conducting a clinical trial within the outpatient treatment setting seeking to analyze the benefits of a new substance abuse treatment intervention utilizing drumming for AI/ANs [Drum-assisted Recovery Therapy for Native Americans (DARTNA)] and to obtain recommendations to successfully conduct a similar study within an inpatient treatment setting.

The most prevalent barriers to conducting a clinical trial within an outpatient setting were transportation and child care issues. Recommendations were obtained with regard to optimizing recruitment and retention for a future study within an inpatient setting.

This research offers the field rare information that helps toward identifying strategies to successfully conduct clinical trials investigating the benefits of culturally-appropriate treatments for AI/ANs with substance use disorders.

Recruitment for pediatric non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) studies is often challenged by low enrollment. Understanding parental perceptions regarding NIBS is crucial to develop new communication strategies to increase enrollment.

Integrating a crossed-disciplinary approach, the authors conducted a survey at the 2018 Minnesota State Fair querying the perception of risk and preferences of current and future parents associated with pediatric NIBS research. The survey consisted of 28 closed-text questions including demographics, photographs portraying NIBS, terminologies and factors related to NIBS studies.

Complete surveys were analyzed from 622 parent participants. A significant number of participants (42.8%) perceived the photographs of NIBS as “risky.” Additionally, 65.43% perceived the term “Non-invasive brain therapy” as not risky, a word combination not currently being used when recruiting potential participants. Over 90% (561/622) of participants chose the photograph of child-friendly MRI suite.

Although this survey identified aspects crucial in recruitment for pediatric NIBS research, there were limitations. For example, the authors did not record the sex or demographic distribution (e.g. rural versus urban setting) of the participants. These factors may also influence recruitment messaging.

For important medical research to impact and improve the lives of the potential remedies, participation by the public in clinical trials is necessary. Often the general public perceives the trials as risky as a result of poor marketing communication recruitment material. This study sought to be understood if how the message is encoded has an impact on the decoding by the receiver.

This systematic review aimed to identify and categorize applications using Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) to support activities outside of direct healthcare provision.

A systematic electronic search was performed, and 53 studies were included after the selection process.

The results show that FHIR is being used to support (1) clinical research (i.e. clinical research based on interventional trials, data interoperability to support clinical research and advanced communication services to support clinical research), (2) public health and (3) medical education. Despite the FHIR potential to support activities outside of direct healthcare provision, some barriers were identified, namely difficulties translating the proposed applications to clinical environments or FHIR technical issues that require further developments.

This study provided a broad review of how FHIR is being applied in clinical activities outside of direct clinical care and identified three major domains, that is, clinical research, public health and medical education, being the first and most representative in terms of number of publications.

After a successful transition from a projects-based IT business services company to a platform-driven analytics company, Saama's core leadership team gathered in 2017 to brainstorm the next phase of its growth. The year before, the team had decided to narrow its target market to the life sciences vertical. Saama now had to decide how to execute on this focused strategy by choosing a growth pathway within the life sciences vertical. Saama's leadership team was considering three alternatives: acquiring new customer accounts, developing existing customer accounts, or developing new products by harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technologies. The team had to evaluate these growth pathways in terms of both short- and long-term revenue potential, as well as their potential for sustaining Saama's competitive advantage.

Health research in the UK is being impeded by a stretched NHS system. The purpose of this paper is to use the Great Fire of Rome as an allegory to understand the difficulties encountered by health researchers when attempting to conduct research within a healthcare system that is currently in crisis.

The paper draws on both the authors’ own and other research teams’ experiences from the published literature in order to demonstrate that this difficulty is a widespread problem for the health research community in the UK.

Recruitment and engagement issues across different research studies and clinical environments are often ascribed as being related to individual contexts or settings. Rather, the authors propose that these problems are actually writ large across nearly the entire NHS. The authors offer ideas for what can be done to alleviate the worst of this situation – a change in culture and ways of working alongside employing more pragmatic, rapid methods to engage exceptionally busy healthcare staff.

The paper offers a provocative viewpoint that instead of seeking to individualise recruitment and engagement issues in relation to the local context, the research community should publicly acknowledge the universality of this problem in order to bring about meaningful change.

Knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) firms focus on applying their expert knowledge to help solve the business problems of their clients: these clients confronted major new problems due to the COVID-19 pandemic and policy measures such as social distancing and travel restrictions, designed to reduce the rapid spread of the illness. Many KIBS were reliant upon extensive contact with clients, and within teams working on projects; they found their practices disrupted. This study aims to examine how KIBS are evolving to cope with both the sets of changes: those in their own operations, and those involving the emerging business problems of clients.

The main data sources are material contained in websites of a sample of leading firms in a range of KIBS sectors, and in media reports and other documentation of efforts to confront the pandemic.

The results indicate considerable efforts in KIBS to address emerging client problems, as well as to adapt their own practices. Their substantial role in confronting the pandemic and associated business difficulties has implications for future crises. KIBS are likely to be important players in shaping responses not only to future pandemics but also to the looming climate crisis.

The study demonstrates the growing role of KIBS and their “second knowledge infrastructure” in modern economies, exemplified by their role in the context of an emerging crisis.

Despite their efficacy, some recommended therapies are underused. The purpose of this paper is to describe clinical decision support system (CDSS) development and its impact on clinical guideline adherence.

A new CDSS was developed and introduced in a cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) in 2003, which provided physicians with patient-tailored reminders and permitted data export from electronic patient records into a national quality registry. To evaluate CDSS effects in the CICU, process indicators were compared to a control group using registry data. All CICUs were in the same region and only patients with acute coronary syndrome were included.

CDSS introduction was associated with increases in guideline adherence, which ranged from 16 to 35 per cent, depending on the therapy. Statistically significant associations between guideline adherence and CDSS use remained over the five-year period after its introduction. During the same period, no relapses occurred in the intervention CICU.

Guideline adherence and healthcare quality can be enhanced using CDSS. This study suggests that practitioners should turn to CDSS to improve healthcare quality.

This paper describes and evaluates an intervention that successfully increased guideline adherence, which improved healthcare quality when the intervention CICU was compared to the control group.

The purpose of this case study is to report and reflect on a recently completed five-year programme of research on dementia care and practice in England. This EVIDEM programme of research was specifically designed to influence services for people with dementia and their carers; several additional lessons emerged along the way that might shape broader research on ageing that includes older people and those who work with them.

This case study of the EVIDEM programme presents and discusses four lessons learned by the core research team – covering the implications of newly basing research inside the NHS, multi-disciplinary working across academic disciplines, communicating with diverse practitioners, and the impact of patient and public involvement on the research process. The paper reflects on communication between the NHS and academic communities, and the creation of new research capacity in dementia.

Collaborative working between academic disciplines is possible, given willing researchers and commitment to participating in frequent opportunities for dialogue and learning. In research in dementia these foundations are probably essential, given the growing scale of the problem and the small size of the research community, if we are to have a beneficial impact on people's lives. Lay expertise is a necessary ingredient of research programmes, not just for its co-design power, but for its ability to redesign projects when major problems arise.

This case study reports the subjective views of the research collaborators. While this raises the potential for bias, it offers an “insider” perspective of the research process and engagement in research leadership.

There are few reflections on research processes and management and this case study may be useful to academic researchers, to those working in the NHS with responsibility for research in different forms, and to older people's organisations who wish to hear of the value of older people's engagement in research advisory activity.