Exploration of understanding of impactibility analysis and application through workshops to inform model design for population health management policy: a qualitative assessment.

OBJECTIVES: Assess understanding of impactibility modelling definitions, benefits, challenges and approaches. DESIGN: Qualitative assessment. SETTING: Two workshops were developed. Workshop 1 was to consider impactibility definitions and terminology through moderated open discussion, what the potential pros and cons might be, and what factors would be best to assess. In workshop 2, participants appraised five approaches to impactibility modelling identified in the literature. PARTICIPANTS: National Health Service (NHS) analysts, policy-makers, academics and members of non-governmental think tank organisations identified through existing networks and via a general announcement on social media. Interested participants could enrol after signing informed consent. OUTCOME MEASURES: Descriptive assessment of responses to gain understanding of the concept of impactibility (defining impactibility analysis), the benefits and challenges of using this type of modelling and most relevant approach to building an impactibility model for the NHS. RESULTS: 37 people attended 1 or 2 workshops in small groups (maximum 10 participants): 21 attended both workshops, 6 only workshop 1 and 10 only workshop 2. Discussions in workshop 1 illustrated that impactibility modelling is not clearly understood, with it generally being viewed as a cross-sectional way to identify patients rather than considering patients by iterative follow-up. Recurrent factors arising from workshop 2 were the shortage of benchmarks; incomplete access to/recording of primary care data and social factors (which were seen as important to understanding amenability to treatment); the need for outcome/action suggestions as well as providing the data and the risk of increasing healthcare inequality. CONCLUSIONS: Understanding of impactibility modelling was poor among our workshop attendees, but it is an emerging concept for which few studies have been published. Implementation would require formal planning and training and should be performed by groups with expertise in the procurement and handling of the most relevant health-related real-world data.

Primary healthcare in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative interview study in Sweden.

OBJECTIVE: To explore how primary healthcare workers in Sweden experienced and perceived the long-term impact of the pandemic on their work. DESIGN: This is a descriptive qualitative study with individual semistructured interviews conducted 2 years after the onset of COVID-19. Data were analysed using an inductive thematic approach. SETTING: Swedish primary healthcare units in rural and urban locations. PARTICIPANTS: 29 healthcare providers (6 registered nurses, 7 assistant nurses, 8 physicians and 8 managers) in Swedish primary healthcare. RESULTS: Data analysis yielded three overarching themes: (1) primary healthcare still affected by the pandemic; (2) primary healthcare changes made permanent; and (3) lessons learnt for handling future crises affecting primary healthcare. The participants experienced a high workload, even after the pandemic, and concluded that it would take years to catch up both mentally and workwise. Four lessons were learnt for future handling of crises that might affect primary healthcare: the importance of creating a cohesive primary healthcare management system to provide clarity regarding recommendations for how primary healthcare personnel should work, the need for management support at all levels, restricting and adapting the flow of information for primary healthcare and ascertaining the necessary resources if primary healthcare is to take on additional tasks. CONCLUSION: Two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, primary healthcare workers in Sweden experienced that their work was still affected by the pandemic. Our findings highlight the importance of ensuring sufficient recovery time and providing opportunities for reflection on the experiences of primary healthcare personnel. This also includes preparedness for managing the heavy workload and strained energy levels of healthcare workers in the aftermath of a crisis.

Personalising veteran healthcare: recognising barriers to access for minority and under-represented groups of veterans.

Veterans are not a demographically homogenous group, yet minority groups continue to be under-represented in research and report feeling less able to access clinical services to seek support. While veteran-specific healthcare has responded to the needs of the majority, the success of veteran mental health services is contingent on serving the whole veteran population. Key to the personalisation of healthcare is the question of access and a need to address specific inequalities and barriers to help-seeking behaviour. In this paper, we explore the issues of access to veteran healthcare at three levels: those barriers common to all veterans; those common to all minority groups of veterans; and those relevant to specific minority groups of veterans. Stigma, military attitudes and culture (eg, stoicism), and access to services and professionals with veteran-specific knowledge are universal barriers across veteran groups. Minority groups report a heightening of these barriers, alongside being 'othered' in veteran care settings, a lack of representation of them or their experiences in service descriptions and advertising, a lack of professional cultural competencies on specific issue, and the veteran environment potentially being retraumatising. Finally, barriers specific to individual groups are discussed. Attending to these is essential in developing holistic approaches to personalised healthcare that meets the needs of all veterans.

"To tell you the truth I'm tired": a qualitative exploration of the experiences of ethnically diverse NHS staff.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this paper was to explore the experiences and support needs of ethnically diverse healthcare staff and how they were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. DESIGN: A qualitative study using focus groups conducted remotely on Microsoft Teams. SETTING: The study took place across 10 National Health Service Trusts in England; 5 were Acute Hospitals Trusts and 5 were Community and Mental Health Trusts. PARTICIPANTS: 55 participants across 16 focus groups took part in the study. Participants were all healthcare staff members from ethnically diverse backgrounds. RESULTS: Seven themes were generated which highlighted issues of negative experiences of discrimination at work, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, including participants often finding line managers unsupportive, appearing to lack care and compassion, and not understanding ethnic diversity issues. Participants identified many reasons for finding it difficult to speak up when faced with such experiences, such as feeling unsafe to do so, or feeling too exhausted to keep speaking up. Other staff had more positive experiences and described supportive interventions, and despite workplace difficulties, many participants discussed remaining motivated to work in the National Health Service. CONCLUSIONS: Negative day-to-day experiences of ethnically diverse healthcare staff, and the difficulty of speaking up about these align with other, international literature on this topic. Progress in the area of staff equality is vital if healthcare organisations are to continue to provide high-quality patient care and retain skilled, compassionate staff who value their place of work. Recent literature suggests that many initiatives to reduce inequalities have not been successful, and there is a call for fundamental, cultural-level change. Future research is needed to understand how best to implement these organisational-level changes and to evaluate their effectiveness.

Impact of C-level positions on hospital performance: a scoping review protocol.

INTRODUCTION: The objective of this scoping review is to identify evidence of the impact of hospital managers in top management (c-suite) on hospital performance. Managers generally have various effects on organisational objectives of their organisations. In recent years, the healthcare sector has experienced alterations in hospital governance structures, together with the emergence of new c-suite positions, aligning more closely with those found in private organisations. Their impact on hospital performance (ie, quality of care) is not well known. This scoping review seeks to identify all the available evidence of their impact on the organisational objectives. This scoping review will include primary studies, reviews and commentaries that describe the impact of top management team members on organisational outcomes in a hospital setting. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The search strategy aims to locate both published and unpublished documents (ie, grey literature) using a three-step search strategy. An exploratory search of Medline and Google Scholar identified keywords and Medical Subject Headings terms. A second search of Medline (PubMed), Web of Science Core Collection, ScienceDirect, Business Source Premier (EBScoHost), JSTOR, BASE, Lens.org and the Google Search Engine will be performed. The scope of the search will cover 1990-present time using English search terms. Manual searching by two reviewers will be added to the search strategy. The identified documents will be independently screened, selected by two researchers and extracted by one researcher. The data are then presented in tables and graphics coupled with a descriptive summary. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: As this study neither involves human participants nor unpublished secondary data, an ethics approval is not required. Findings will be disseminated through professional networks, conference presentations and publication in a scientific journal. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: The protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/EBKUP).

A Conceptual Framework from the Philippines to Analyse Organisational Capacities for Health Policy and Systems Research.

Organisations that perform Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) need robust capacities, but it remains unclear how these organisations should look like in practice. We sought to define 'HPSRIs' (pronounced as 'hip-srees', i.e., 'Health Policy and Systems Research Institutions') as organisational models and developed a conceptual framework for assessing their capacities based on a set of attributes. We implemented a multi-method study in the Philippines that comprised: a qualitative analysis of perspectives from 33 stakeholders in the HPSR ecosystem on the functions, strengths, and challenges of HPSRIs; a workshop with 17 multi-sectoral representatives who collectively developed a conceptual framework for assessing organisational capacities for HPSRIs based on organisational attributes; and a survey instrument development process that determined indicators for assessing these attributes. We defined HPSRIs to be formally constituted organisations (or institutions) with the minimum essential function of research. Beyond the research function, our framework outlined eight organisational attributes of well-performing HPSRIs that were grouped into four domains, namely: research expertise: (1) excellent research, (2) capacity building driven; leadership and management: (3) efficient administration, (4) financially sustainable; policy translation: (5) policy orientation, (6) effective communication; and networking: (7) participatory approach, (8) convening influence. We developed a self-assessment instrument around these attributes that HPSRIs could use to inform their respective organisational development and collectively discuss their shared challenges. In addition to developing the framework, the workshop also analysed the positionality of HPSRIs and their interactions with other institutional actors in the HPSR ecosystem and recommend the importance of enhancing these interactions and assigning responsibility to a national/regional authority that will foster the community of HPSRIs. When tailored to their context, HPSRIs that function at the nexus of research, management, policy, and networks help achieve the main purpose of HPSR, which is to 'achieve collective health goals and contribute to policy outcomes.'

The use and application of Lean Management methods to research processes-a scoping review protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Waste in medical research is a relatively well-known issue. However, only a few initiatives exist to address this issue. Lean Management methods (Lean) were developed in industrial manufacturing and later applied within healthcare improvement. Overall, the results from studies of the application of Lean to healthcare appear to be positive in terms of greater efficiency regarding treatment outcomes and patient care. Nevertheless, the application of Lean to improve research processes is not well studied and, given that research alongside clinical practice and experiential knowledge provides the foundation for the treatment and care of patients, it is paramount to identify approaches and review the degree to which they increase efficiency within research procedures. Therefore, this review will scope the landscape of studies that investigated Lean and how to implement Lean in research processes, particularly regarding healthcare research. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Our approach follows the methodological framework of Arksey and O'Malley for conducting scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR). The search strategy for this scoping review was developed using the PCC model. We will identify the relevant literature by searching four search databases: Scopus, Web of Science, Academic Search Premier and Business Source Complete. Next, we will use citation pearl growing to identify all relevant published literature. The data charting process will follow the PRISMA-ScR checklist and will be organised using NVivo. We will generate qualitative and quantitative assessments of the extracted data by using NVivo, RStudio and Excel. We will follow the PRISMA-ScR guideline when reporting the results. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The review will comprise existing published studies and no primary data will be collected. Our findings will be shared through open access peer-reviewed journals, national and international conferences and emails to all relevant collaborative relationships. We plan to disseminate our findings via academic social media platforms, newspaper articles and blogposts.

How might the rapid development of artificial intelligence affect the delivery of UK Defence healthcare?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has developed greatly and is now at the centre of technological advancements. Current and recent military conflicts have highlighted the evolving complexity of warfare with rapid technological change at the heart of it. AI aims to understand and design systems that show signs of intelligence and are able to learn by deriving knowledge from data. There have been multiple AI-related developments in the medical field in areas such as diagnostics, triage, wearable technology and training with direct translations that may benefit UK Defence healthcare. With the increasing use of AI in society and medical practice, it is important to consider whether AI can be trustworthy and has any legal implications, and evaluate its use through an ethical lens. In conclusion, the rapid development of AI presents exciting opportunities for UK Defence to enhance its healthcare delivery. This paper was selected as the BMJ Military Health Essay Prize winner at the Royal Society of Medicine Colt Foundation Meeting 2023.

Development, implementation and usefulness of an intervention to support psychological resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic: a study from a Swedish hospital based on interviews, documents and a survey.

OBJECTIVES: A range of interventions to support psychological resilience among healthcare workers were provided in hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most research has focused on the content and experience of these interventions, but less is known about their implementation. The aim of this study was to increase understanding of the development, implementation and perceived usefulness of an intervention to support psychological resilience among healthcare workers at a Swedish hospital during the pandemic. DESIGN: This study employs interviews and documents to explore the development and implementation of support activities and a survey to assess the usefulness of the activities (on a scale from 1 to 5). Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the interview data and documents. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the survey data. SETTINGS: A tertiary hospital in the outskirts of Region Stockholm. PARTICIPANTS: Eight individual interviews were conducted with actors involved in developing the intervention. 286 healthcare workers answered the survey. RESULTS: Support activities were developed and implemented by an internal multidisciplinary group who continuously identified and adapted activities to the needs of staff. The strategy of involving existing resources to jointly develop and continuously adapt staff support activities was beneficial for the implementation and longevity of the intervention. Scheduling difficulties were one of the challenges. The mean ratings of the activities ranged from 2.27 for one-on-one counselling to 3.25 for physical activity. Licensed practical nurses generally valued the activities higher than other professional groups. CONCLUSIONS: The provision of activities to support psychological resilience in a crisis is facilitated by the ability of an organisation to use current resources in the face of a crisis, which is a sign of organisational resilience. Leaders who act quickly and create the conditions to test and learn under uncertainty can contribute to developing effective responses to a crisis.

Exploring Norwegian homecare healthcare professionals' perceptions of risk and the link to high-quality care: a qualitative multiple case study.

OBJECTIVES: Homecare is a critical component of the ongoing restructuring of healthcare worldwide, given the shift from institution- to home-based care. The homecare evidence base still contains significant gaps: There is a lack of knowledge regarding quality and safety work and interventions. This study explores how home healthcare professionals perceive and use the concept of risk to guide them in providing high-quality healthcare while maintaining resilience. DESIGN: The study design is a qualitative multiple case study. The phenomena explored were risk perception, sensemaking and adaptations of care delivered to patients in their homes. Inductive content analysis was conducted. SETTING: The study was conducted in three Norwegian municipalities. Each municipality was defined as a single case. PARTICIPANTS: Interviews with healthcare professionals were performed both individually and in focus groups of three to five persons. 19 interviews with 35 informants were conducted: 11 individual semistructured interviews and 8 focus groups. RESULTS: Four themes were identified: 'professionalism is constantly prioritising and aligning care based on here-and-now observations' 'teamwork feels safe and enhances quality' 'taking responsibility for system risk' and 'reluctantly accepting the extended expectations from society'. CONCLUSIONS: To make sense of risk when aspiring for high-quality care in everyday work, the healthcare professionals in this sample mainly used their clinical gaze, gut feeling and experience to detect subtle changes in the patients' condition. Assessing risk information, not only individually but also as a team, was reportedly crucial for high-quality care. Healthcare professionals emphasised the well-being, safety and soundness of the patients when acting on risk information. They felt obliged to act on their gut feeling, moral compass and clinical understanding of quality.

Application of generative language models to orthopaedic practice.

OBJECTIVE: To explore whether large language models (LLMs) Generated Pre-trained Transformer (GPT)-3 and ChatGPT can write clinical letters and predict management plans for common orthopaedic scenarios. DESIGN: Fifteen scenarios were generated and ChatGPT and GPT-3 prompted to write clinical letters and separately generate management plans for identical scenarios with plans removed. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Letters were assessed for readability using the Readable Tool. Accuracy of letters and management plans were assessed by three independent orthopaedic surgery clinicians. RESULTS: Both models generated complete letters for all scenarios after single prompting. Readability was compared using Flesch-Kincade Grade Level (ChatGPT: 8.77 (SD 0.918); GPT-3: 8.47 (SD 0.982)), Flesch Readability Ease (ChatGPT: 58.2 (SD 4.00); GPT-3: 59.3 (SD 6.98)), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) Index (ChatGPT: 11.6 (SD 0.755); GPT-3: 11.4 (SD 1.01)), and reach (ChatGPT: 81.2%; GPT-3: 80.3%). ChatGPT produced more accurate letters (8.7/10 (SD 0.60) vs 7.3/10 (SD 1.41), p=0.024) and management plans (7.9/10 (SD 0.63) vs 6.8/10 (SD 1.06), p<0.001) than GPT-3. However, both LLMs sometimes omitted key information or added additional guidance which was at worst inaccurate. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that LLMs are effective for generation of clinical letters. With little prompting, they are readable and mostly accurate. However, they are not consistent, and include inappropriate omissions or insertions. Furthermore, management plans produced by LLMs are generic but often accurate. In the future, a healthcare specific language model trained on accurate and secure data could provide an excellent tool for increasing the efficiency of clinicians through summarisation of large volumes of data into a single clinical letter.

The 6I model: an expanded 4I framework to conceptualise interorganisational learning in the global health sector.

INTRODUCTION: An organisation's ability to learn and adapt is key to its long-term performance and success. Although calls to improve learning within and across health organisations and systems have increased in recent years, global health is lagging behind other sectors in attention to learning, and applications of conceptual models for organisational learning to this field are needed. LEVERAGING THE 4I FRAMEWORK: This article proposes modifications to the 4I framework for organisational learning (which outlines the processes of intuition, interpretation, integration and institutionalisation) to guide the creation, retention and exchange of knowledge within and across global health organisations. PROPOSED EXPANSIONS: Two expansions are added to the framework to account for interorganisational learning in the highly interconnected field: (1) learning pathways across organisations via formal or informal partnerships and communities of practice and (2) learning pathways to and from macro-level 'coordinating bodies' (eg, WHO). Two additional processes are proposed by which interorganisational learning occurs: interaction across partnerships and communities of practice, and incorporation linking global health organisations to coordinating bodies. Organisational politics across partnerships, communities of practice and coordinating bodies play an important role in determining why some insights are institutionalised while others are not; as such, the roles of the episodic influence and systemic domination forms of power are considered in the proposed additional organisational learning processes. DISCUSSION: When lessons are not shared across partnerships, communities of practice or the research community more broadly, funding may continue to support global health studies and programmes that have already been proven ineffective, squandering research and healthcare resources that could have been invested elsewhere. The '6I' framework provides a basis for assessing and implementing organisational learning approaches in global health programming, and in health systems more broadly.

Assessing early feasibility of a novel innovation to increase consumer partnership capability within an Australian health innovation organisation using a mixed-method approach.

OBJECTIVE: Engagement-capable health organisations recognise that consumer engagement (also known as patient engagement, consumer engagement, patient and public involvement) must occur at every level of the organisation if it is to be meaningful and genuine. Despite this aspiration, health organisations struggle to adopt, implement, and embody consumer engagement capability in a way that has yielded impact. The Partner Ring (PR) is an embedded model for building staff capability for consumer partnerships. It is hosted by an employed Patient Partner. PR was implemented at the Agency for Clinical Innovation in New South Wales, Australia. The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility (acceptability, demand and practicality) of this innovation to increase consumer engagement capability. DESIGN: One-group post-intervention mixed methods approach to assess feasibility. PARTICIPANTS: ACI staff engaged in the PR (n=40 of 89 members). DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Qualitative data was collected through an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven interactive interview, with 40 responses received between 29 June and 12 July 2023. A framework analysis and Generative AI causal mapping were conducted to identify and visualise causal claims within the texts. Cost and session attendance collected from the same point in time supplemented the analysis. FINDINGS: Findings were categorised by the following feasibility constructs: acceptability, demand and practicality. Almost all the respondents indicated their intent to continue using the PR and outlined personal benefits and professional benefits. For example, (n=23, 57%) reacted positively to the psychological safety of the PR, and professionally people identified attendance increased their knowledge and skills (n=23, 57%). CONCLUSION: The PR is feasible and likely to be an acceptable innovation for building staff capability and consumer engagement skills across a large health system or organisation. It could be adopted or adapted by other jurisdictions.

'Nothing About Us Without Us': exploring benefits and challenges of peer support for people with disability in peer support organisations - protocol paper for a qualitative coproduction project.

INTRODUCTION: One in six people live with disability in Australia with higher levels of disability of people from diverse communities, such as those with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds. In Australia, CALD refers to people from diverse ethnicity and cultures, nationalities, societal structures and religions that may or may not speak a language other than English. This study employs researchers with lived experience of disability and peer support to study the impact of peer support for people with disability, including people from CALD backgrounds, in two peer-led organisations in New South Wales (NSW) Australia. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This study uses participatory action research and inclusive research design with researchers with lived experience, having lived experience of disability and a peer in the disability community, leading the research.Over three years, three different groups will be recruited through Community Disability Alliance Hunter (CDAH) and Diversity and Disability Alliance (DDAlliance): (1) peers with disability, (2) peer leaders with disability and (3) researchers with lived experience of disability and peer support. Data collection and creation methods include semistructured interviews, surveys and focus groups. Qualitative data will be analysed using thematic analysis through the lens of the researchers with lived experience. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval was granted by the University of Newcastle Human Research Ethics Committee (Approval No: H-2021-0088). Dissemination includes peer-reviewed publications, presentations at local, national and international conferences and written reports for user-led organisations, disability service providers, disability agencies and people with disability.

Defining conditions for effective interdisciplinary care team communication in an open surgical intensive care unit: a qualitative study.

OBJECTIVE: Poor interdisciplinary care team communication has been associated with increased mortality. The study aimed to define conditions for effective interdisciplinary care team communication. DESIGN: An observational cross-sectional qualitative study. SETTING: A surgical intensive care unit in a large, urban, academic referral medical centre. PARTICIPANTS: A total 6 interviews and 10 focus groups from February to June 2021 (N=33) were performed. Interdisciplinary clinicians who cared for critically ill patients were interviewed. Participants included intensivist, transplant, colorectal, vascular, surgical oncology, trauma faculty surgeons (n=10); emergency medicine, surgery, gynaecology, radiology physicians-in-training (n=6), advanced practice providers (n=5), nurses (n=7), fellows (n=1) and subspecialist clinicians such as respiratory therapists, pharmacists and dieticians (n=4). Audiorecorded content of interviews and focus groups were deidentified and transcribed verbatim. The study team iteratively generated the codebook. All transcripts were independently coded by two team members. PRIMARY OUTCOME: Conditions for effective interdisciplinary care team communication. RESULTS: We identified five themes relating to conditions for effective interdisciplinary care team communication in our surgical intensive care unit setting: role definition, formal processes, informal communication pathways, hierarchical influences and psychological safety. Participants reported that clear role definition and standardised formal communication processes empowered clinicians to engage in discussions that mitigated hierarchy and facilitated psychological safety. CONCLUSIONS: Standardising communication and creating defined roles in formal processes can promote effective interdisciplinary care team communication by fostering psychological safety.