THIS Institute (The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute)

In the first episode of our new podcast series Listen to THIS, host Kristina Wanyonyi-Kay and guests THIS Fellows Patrick Burch, Georgia Black, and Sean Manzi discuss: • What extended access to primary care looks like for a patient. • The challenges a busy GP faces when balancing time, capacity, and urgent patient needs. • Taking a system level approach and the trade-offs that must be made. Listen now and tell us what you think: https://ths.im/3ERiFeJ ______________________ Listen to THIS is the healthcare improvement research podcast which dives into both current and longstanding healthcare challenges and shines a light on the work that's being done to address them.

Have you experienced a caesarean birth? We want to hear from you! Please share your views on the outcomes that are most important to you. Join an important conversation and help make a difference. Click the link below and share your thoughts 👇

From general practice to critical care, technology and innovation, systems and the cultures within healthcare, we explore the latest research in the field of healthcare improvement in our brand-new podcast series, Listen to THIS. Exploring how we can improve the quality and safety of healthcare through different lenses, we dive into current and longstanding challenges. Through honest discussions, our guests shine a light on the work that’s being done to address these challenges by drawing on their diverse expertise. Episode one will launch on Wednesday 26 February with new episodes releasing every fortnight, on all major listening platforms. Find out more and keep up to date with new episodes launching every fortnight https://ths.im/3QlwEMe

Many small-scale healthcare improvements are localised, led by busy professionals with little or no specialised training and with limited resources. This can mean that while a lot of effort is devoted to finding ways to improve healthcare quality and safety, the results of some of these initiatives can be disappointing. At the same time, they can offer valuable insights. We asked professionals with formal training in improvement techniques and extensive experience leading small-scale QI efforts in surgery to identify what makes the biggest difference when working with limited time, expertise, and resources. They said: 1️⃣ Planning well before starting and resisting the urge to jump straight into action. 2️⃣ Properly defining the specific problem that the improvement efforts should solve. 3️⃣ Realistic, context-specific goals that help maximise the available time and resources. 4️⃣ Engaging the right project team and stakeholders. 5️⃣ Being able to draw on structured frameworks to guide their efforts. Doing these things well may help to increase the likelihood that small-scale surgical improvement projects will achieve impact and generate learning that can be applied elsewhere. Read more: https://ths.im/4gVfhwI

📢 Early-bird registration for THIS Space 2025 is open! Our annual conference, THIS Space, is taking place on Tuesday 25 November this year. The event is free to attend and open to everyone interested in improving healthcare, especially in the NHS. The event takes place entirely online to enable as many people as possible to join us. Register now: https://ths.im/41cccU2 Last year at THIS Space 2024, we covered: 🔹Over-testing and over-diagnosis 🔹Improving maternity care 🔹Access to general practice 🔹Responsible data science and healthcare innovation During the event, delegates had the chance to put their questions to our stellar line-up of speakers. After the event, we caught up with Natalie Armstrong, Jessica Morley, and Florence Doo, and they were delighted to answer some more of your questions.  Find out more: https://ths.im/41evWXs

Share your views on improving data collection for avoidable brain injury at birth! Take part in our short survey by 23 Feb and help make a difference. Participation is anonymous and takes no more than 15 minutes. Your input will help: 🌟 Develop a single national database dedicated to avoidable brain injury 🌟 Make recording of data more consistent and easier in practice 🌟 Inform activities to reduce the risk of brain injury. Be part of this important improvement initiative. Take part in the survey now: https://ths.im/4b154NF

More and more people who are frail are being cared for in their own homes rather than in hospital. Hospital at Home services (also known as frailty virtual wards) are growing rapidly, allowing more people with frailty to be cared for at home instead of in a hospital. Our team set out to find out more about how these services work. As Hospital at Home services take on an increasingly important role, understanding how they work in practice is essential. One issue that’s puzzling is why the use of remote monitoring on virtual wards caring for people with frailty is lower than expected. We conducted a study to understand how Hospital at Home services operate in real-world settings. We identified key shared goals, challenges and differences across Hospital at Home services. We also found several challenges associated with implementing remote monitoring. • Benefits included high levels of patient satisfaction, freedom and being able to stay in their own home when they are unwell. • Challenges included the belief that hospital care was safer, staffing issues, access to diagnostics and technology and the effects on carers, family or friends. Download the report: https://ths.im/41dW3Og Read THIS summary: https://ths.im/40Uj2MJ

How can we improve the safety and quality of medication management for patients in palliative care? THIS Fellow Sarah Yardley will be speaking at the 2025 Marie Curie Research into Practice Conference on Thursday 13 February. Along with the study team, she will share the potential ways in which to improve medication management system in practice. Launching the ‘Getting Palliative Medications Right Toolkit’ in the ‘Building bridges from research to practice’ talk at 10:00, she will share key evidence from her qualitative research. This research forms part of Sarah’s fellowship project which explores how to achieve safe palliative care that provides patients with confidence. The project considers what happens when care is shared by healthcare professionals in hospitals and in primary and community care settings. Sarah is an Associate Professor of Palliative Medicine at University College London with a particular interest in the role of relationship-centred practices in healthcare systems. The conference is held online from 11 – 14 February and free to attend for all. View the full programme and register to attend and hear Sarah speak here: https://ths.im/3Ezq41Z Learn more about Sarah’s fellowship research here https://ths.im/4gFcFTk

With the referral pathways for cancer diagnosis evolving, what can be learned about the safety culture and what can it tell us about improving patient care? We spoke to THIS Fellow, Georgia Black from Queen Mary University of London whose post-doctoral fellowship investigates the potential improvements that can be made to the current service design for the non-specific symptom pathways across the NHS. Having published two papers so far, Georgia found that her research highlighted the significant demands placed on the patient when navigating new pathways and complexities for the system in providing holistic support for patients while balancing timely cancer targets and local policies. As her project comes to an end, we reflected on her fellowship by exploring her research findings, learn about the innovate ways she engaged with clinicians and those working in cancer alliances as well as what she’ll be looking to research next. Read Georgia’s story and learn more about her project https://ths.im/4jLAQSU

Brain injuries around the time of birth can have serious and life-changing effects for babies and their families. To understand how often, and why this type of injury happens, we need high quality data to help us to understand how and why, and what could be done to prevent them. Maternity and neonatal professionals are asked to enter data of women and babies into a local electronic patient record as part of their clinical practice, but it can be difficult to record clearly and accurately. Some of these electronic patient record data are later extracted into national digital datasets aimed to help improve services. It wasn’t clear which data relevant to brain injuries were being captured by these datasets. It also wasn’t clear what the most important challenges are to make better use of available data. That’s why we reviewed maternity and neonatal datasets used in the UK. We also interviewed a multi-professional group of specialists to explore challenges to making better use of available data. We found a need to standardise the definition of avoidable perinatal brain injury, resolve inconsistencies in capturing data, improve linkage of data collected across existing data sources, and co-design a strategy for meaningful use of data. As a next step, we are working on a strategy for a programme that will aim to: • develop a single national database dedicated to avoidable brain injury. • make recording of data more consistent and easier in practice. • inform activities to reduce the risk of brain injury. Here’s what we found: THIS summary: https://ths.im/3EmcBdH Full paper: https://ths.im/40XLEWD Help us improve data on avoidable brain injury around the time of birth: https://ths.im/40XsEHD