scholarly journals Improving knowledge transfer: A realist evaluation of the implementation of knowledge transfer pathways by a health research funder

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lesley Middleton
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Knowledge Transfer ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Realist Evaluation ◽  
Application Process ◽  
Transfer Policy ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Final Theory

<p>Organisations whose mission is to fund health research are increasingly concerned with ensuring that the research they fund is used productively. The resulting interest in the concept of “knowledge transfer” has involved introducing policies to prompt researchers to think about their role, not just as knowledge producers, but as translators of research findings. In New Zealand, researchers can be asked, in their application for funds, to provide an account of what will happen to their research results. They are then judged on the quality of that account. However, little is known about how effectively this type of policy influences researchers to do more to make connections with those who use their findings.  Using the explanatory power of the realist evaluative approach, this thesis examines the implementation of new instructions by the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) for providing knowledge transfer pathways in research applications. A focus of the research is on how these instructions change (or do not change) the mind-set of researchers. Key informant interviews were held, and the scholarly and grey literature examined, to develop an initial theory on how researchers would be influenced by such instructions. Individual interviews were then held with researchers, seeking their reflections on what they had originally written in a specific knowledge transfer pathway and how this then matched up with what actually happened; these interviews were then used to refine the initial theory. Finally, an on-line survey was conducted with those who sat on the HRC’s research assessing committees in the 2014/15 funding round in order to refine the theory further.  The final theory identified six mechanisms, which under different contexts, explain how the HRC’s knowledge transfer policy works (or does not work) to prompt researchers to reason differently. A continuum of reasoning in the form of a dimmer switch was used to explain circumstances where researchers may become more mindful of what is involved in knowledge transfer, but were not likely to markedly change their behaviours. Based on the assumption that the HRC wants to be more active in encouraging researchers to undertake activities other than producing research results, two recommendations are made: (1) knowledge transfer policies should support self-reflexivity by different groups of researchers rather than creating more hoops within the research application process, and (2) the processes by which knowledge transfer sections are judged needs to be strengthened if researchers are going to be confident that this is a “serious” part of the application process.</p>

scholarly journals Improving knowledge transfer: A realist evaluation of the implementation of knowledge transfer pathways by a health research funder

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lesley Middleton
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Knowledge Transfer ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Realist Evaluation ◽  
Application Process ◽  
Transfer Policy ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Final Theory

<p>Organisations whose mission is to fund health research are increasingly concerned with ensuring that the research they fund is used productively. The resulting interest in the concept of “knowledge transfer” has involved introducing policies to prompt researchers to think about their role, not just as knowledge producers, but as translators of research findings. In New Zealand, researchers can be asked, in their application for funds, to provide an account of what will happen to their research results. They are then judged on the quality of that account. However, little is known about how effectively this type of policy influences researchers to do more to make connections with those who use their findings.  Using the explanatory power of the realist evaluative approach, this thesis examines the implementation of new instructions by the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) for providing knowledge transfer pathways in research applications. A focus of the research is on how these instructions change (or do not change) the mind-set of researchers. Key informant interviews were held, and the scholarly and grey literature examined, to develop an initial theory on how researchers would be influenced by such instructions. Individual interviews were then held with researchers, seeking their reflections on what they had originally written in a specific knowledge transfer pathway and how this then matched up with what actually happened; these interviews were then used to refine the initial theory. Finally, an on-line survey was conducted with those who sat on the HRC’s research assessing committees in the 2014/15 funding round in order to refine the theory further.  The final theory identified six mechanisms, which under different contexts, explain how the HRC’s knowledge transfer policy works (or does not work) to prompt researchers to reason differently. A continuum of reasoning in the form of a dimmer switch was used to explain circumstances where researchers may become more mindful of what is involved in knowledge transfer, but were not likely to markedly change their behaviours. Based on the assumption that the HRC wants to be more active in encouraging researchers to undertake activities other than producing research results, two recommendations are made: (1) knowledge transfer policies should support self-reflexivity by different groups of researchers rather than creating more hoops within the research application process, and (2) the processes by which knowledge transfer sections are judged needs to be strengthened if researchers are going to be confident that this is a “serious” part of the application process.</p>

scholarly journals Measuring socioeconomic position in New Zealand

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Salmond ◽  
Peter Crampton
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Socioeconomic Position ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Household Income ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Socioeconomic Deprivation ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Area Index ◽  
Individual Level

INTRODUCTION: Measures of socioeconomic position (SEP) are widely used in health research. AIM: To provide future researchers with empirically based guidance about the relative utility of five measures of SEP in predicting health outcomes. METHODS: Data from 12 488 adults were obtained from the 2006 New Zealand Health Survey. Seven health-related outcome measures with expected variations by SEP are modelled using five measures of SEP: a census-based small-area index of relative socioeconomic deprivation, NZDep2006; a questionnaire-based individual-level index of socioeconomic deprivation, NZiDep; an index of living standards, ELSI; education, measured by highest qualification; and equivalised household income. RESULTS: After including the individual measure of deprivation, the area-based measure of deprivation adds useful explanatory power, and, separately, the broader spectrum provided by the living standards index adds only a small amount of extra explanatory power. The education and household income variables add little extra explanatory power. DISCUSSION: Both NZiDep and ELSI are useful health-outcome predictors. NZiDep is the cheapest data to obtain and less prone to missing data. The area index, NZDep, is a useful addition to the arsenal of individual SEP indicators, and is a reasonable alternative to them where the use of individual measures is impracticable. Education and household income, using commonly used measurement tools, may be of limited use in research if more proximal indicators of SEP are available. NZDep and NZiDep are cost-effective measures of SEP in health research. Other or additional measures may be useful if costs allow and/or for topic-related hypothesis testing. KEYWORDS: Deprivation; inequalities; living standards; New Zealand; socioeconomic position

Policy Considerations for the Design and Use of Web Portals for Researchers, Clinicians, and Patients: A Scoping Literature Review (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lang ◽  
Sébastien Lemieux ◽  
Josée Hébert ◽  
Guy Sauvageau ◽  
Ma'n H. Zawati
Keyword(s):  
Patient Care ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Complex Disease ◽  
Patient Empowerment ◽  
Patient Portals ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Online Systems ◽  
The Public ◽  
Online Tools ◽  
Research Findings

BACKGROUND Medical care and health research are jointly undergoing significant changes brought about by the Internet [1,2,3]. New online tools, apps, and programs are helping to facilitate unprecedented levels of data sharing and collaboration, potentially enabling more precisely targeted treatment and rapid research translation [4,5,6]. Patient portals have been a significant part of this emerging online health ecosystem, providing patients a mechanism for accessing electronic health records, managing appointments and prescriptions, even communicating directly with care providers [7]. Much has been written about the technical and ethical challenges associated with the development and integration of patient portals into the clinic [8,9]. But portal technology might also be used to connect health researchers to clinicians, patients, and the public. Online systems could be a useful platform for broadly and rapidly disseminating research results while also promoting patient empowerment. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to assess the potential use of online portals that facilitate the sharing of health research findings among researchers, clinicians, patients, and the public. It will also summarize the potential legal, ethical, and policy implications associated with such tools for public use and in the management of patient care for complex disease. METHODS We systematically consulted three databases, PubMed, Scopus, and WestLaw Next for sources describing online portals for sharing health research findings among clinicians, researchers, and patients and their associated legal, ethical, and policy challenges. raised by the integration of online tools into patient care for complex disease. Of 719 source citations, we retained 22 for review. RESULTS We found a varied and inconsistent treatment of online portals for sharing health research findings among clinicians, researchers, and patients. While the literature supports the view that portals of this kind are potentially highly promising, they remain novel and are not yet being widely adopted. We also found a wide-ranging discussion on the legal, ethical, and policy issues related to the use of online tools for sharing research data. We identified five important policy challenges: privacy & confidentiality, health literacy & patient empowerment, equity, training, and decision making. Each of these, we contend, have meaningful implications for the increased integration of online tools into clinical care. CONCLUSIONS As online tools become increasingly important mechanisms for sharing health research with clinicians, patients, and the public, it is vital that these developments are met with ethical and conceptual scrutiny. Therapeutic portals as they are presented in this paper may become a more widespread feature of precision and translational medicine. Our findings suggest that online portals are already being used to disseminate research results among clinicians, patients, and the public. But much of the ethical and conceptual debate is framed in terms of the patient portal, a concept that does not adequately reflect the potentially broader scope of therapeutic portals. It may be useful to clarify this distinction in future research and to underscore the unique ethical, legal, and policy challenges raised when online systems are used as a platform for disseminating research to as wide an audience as possible. CLINICALTRIAL n/a

scholarly journals Combining Realist approaches and Normalization Process Theory to understand implementation: a systematic review

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Michelle Dalkin ◽  
Rebecca J. L. Hardwick ◽  
Catherine A. Haighton ◽  
Tracy L. Finch
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Health Management ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Family Health ◽  
Realist Evaluation ◽  
Normalization Process Theory ◽  
Process Theory ◽  
Scientific Realist ◽  
Health Database ◽  
Normalization Process

Abstract Background Realist approaches and Normalization Process Theory (NPT) have both gained significant traction in implementation research over the past 10 years. The aim of this study was therefore to explore how the approaches are combined to understand problems of implementation, to determine the degree of complementarity of the two approaches and to provide practical approaches for using them together. Methods Systematic review of research studies combining Realist and NPT approaches. Realist methodology is concerned with understanding and explaining causation, that is, how and why policies, programmes and interventions achieve their effects. NPT is a theory of implementation that explains how practices become normalised. Databases searched (January 2020) were ASSIA, CINAHL, Health Research Premium Collection via Proquest (Family Health Database, Health & Medical Collection, Health Management Database, MEDLINE, Nursing & Allied Health Database, Psychology Database, Public Health Database) and PsycARTICLES. Studies were included if the author(s) stated they used both approaches: a scientific Realist perspective applying the principles of Pawson and Tilley’s Realist Evaluation or Pawson’s Realist Synthesis and Normalization Process Theory either solely or in addition to other theories. Two authors screened records; discrepancies were reviewed by a third screener. Data was extracted by three members of the team and a narrative synthesis was undertaken. Results Of 245 total records identified, 223 unique records were screened and 39 full-text papers were reviewed, identifying twelve papers for inclusion in the review. These papers represented eight different studies. Extent and methods of integration of the approaches varied. In most studies (6/8), Realist approaches were the main driver. NPT was mostly used to enhance the explanatory power of Realist analyses, informing development of elements of Contexts, Mechanisms and Outcomes (a common heuristic in realist work). Authors’ reflections on the integration of NPT and Realist approaches were limited. Conclusions Using Realist and NPT approaches in combination can add explanatory power for understanding the implementation of interventions and programmes. Attention to detailed reporting on methods and analytical process when combining approaches, and appraisal of theoretical and practical utility is advised for advancing knowledge of applying these approaches in research. Systematic review registration Not registered.

scholarly journals Evidence for Publicly Reported Quality Indicators in Residential Long-Term Care: A Systematic Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 181-181
Author(s):  
Franziska Zúñiga ◽  
Magdalena Osinska ◽  
Franziska Zuniga
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Quality Indicators ◽  
Long Term Care ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
Public Reporting ◽  
Assessment Instrument ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Residential Long Term Care

Abstract Quality indicators (QIs) are used internationally to measure, compare and improve quality in residential long-term care. Public reporting of such indicators allows transparency and motivates local quality improvement initiatives. However, little is known about the quality of QIs. In a systematic literature review, we assessed which countries publicly report health-related QIs, whether stakeholders were involved in their development and the evidence concerning their validity and reliability. Most information was found in grey literature, with nine countries (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and five countries in Europe) publicly reporting a total of 66 QIs in areas like mobility, falls, pressure ulcers, continence, pain, weight loss, and physical restraint. While USA, Canada and New Zealand work with QIs from the Resident Assessment Instrument – Minimal Data Set (RAI-MDS), the other countries developed their own QIs. All countries involved stakeholders in some phase of the QI development. However, we only found reports from Canada and Australia on both, the criteria judged (e.g. relevance, influenceability), and the results of structured stakeholder surveys. Interrater reliability was measured for some RAI QIs and for those used in Germany, showing overall good Kappa values (&gt;0.6) except for QIs concerning mobility, falls and urinary tract infection. Validity measures were only found for RAI QIs and were mostly moderate. Although a number of QIs are publicly reported and used for comparison and policy decisions, available evidence is still limited. We need broader and accessible evidence for a responsible use of QIs in public reporting.

Reimagining a Realist Evaluation Research in Entrepreneurship Skills Development and the Idea of University Education

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-133
Author(s):  
Valile Valindawo M. Dwayi
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Evaluation Research ◽  
Realist Evaluation ◽  
University Education ◽  
Skills Development ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Espoused Values ◽  
Innovation And Technology ◽  
Sustainability Challenges

This article reports on the evaluation researchproject, which focussed on the viability and sustainability challenges in one particular case of a university over a period of five years. Such a university remains categorised as structurally disadvantaged despite almost thirty years into constitutional democracy in South Africa. As such, the research project was conducted against the complexity of the university transformation project, which take place against the enduring social ills as high unemployment rate, increasing inequalities and abject poverties especially from the enduring legacy of the old racist apartheid system. The role of university education in such a context becomes the reflexive imperative in consideration of university, not only as the public good and equity, but for social justice and equity discourses. Such discourses need to be made more loud than is presently the case. The research therefore focussed on the role of entrepreneurship skills development, which then were juxtaposed with the espoused values of of science, innovation and technology as the key performance indicators for the academic project. As such, the article will revolve around the main argument that scholarship of engagament in univeristy spaces, where entrepreneurship skills development ought to be the enabling system, need to be reimagined in terms of the contemporary research disciplines. Critical realist philosophy, and the realist social theory as the explanatory program, provide the alternative research approach to the mainstream approaches due to their explanatory power for for transcendentalism and based on retroductive arguemnts about the social world. Such an approach does not only foreground the contemporary debates in social sciences, and the emerging fields of study within it, but also help to elaborate on the purist positions that tend to be promoted in some business science fields and their inadvertent pragmatic and black box logic. Keywords: Viability, Sustainability, Entrepreneurship skills development, Historically disadvantaged universities, realist evaluative research

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