From clinical research to data science, critical care to paramedic services, anthropology to engineering, facilities management and more, hosts Graham Martin and Tara Lamont reflect on the previous seven episodes, revisiting the key points and insights shared from our guests in the field of healthcare improvement.

This is our last episode of series 2 of the Listen to THIS podcast. In this series, we’ve explored learning from failure, doing less, relationships and team working, working across disciplines and breaking down boundaries, coproduction, accessing care and learning from a major crisis – all elements that can contribute to improving healthcare.

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Listen to THIS is the healthcare research podcast which explores how we can improve the quality and safety of healthcare, diving into both current and longstanding healthcare challenges and shining a light on the work that's being done to address them.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can principles from design and the integration of technology help us improve quality and care for patients through better research? What boundaries are encountered when different disciplines are applied to finding innovative solutions to challenges in healthcare?

In this episode, host Kristina Wanyonyi-Kay is joined by Graham Pullin, Kurannen Baaki and Niels Peek to explore what taking a holistic approach to improving healthcare can look like. They discuss:

· How the design of a prosthetic limb can define its relationship with its wearer, and how they are seen by others

· The role facilities management can play in creating an efficient hospital workplace that improves patient outcomes

· Whether technologists underestimate the complexity of healthcare services and how we can take advantage of the opportunities that new technologies and data present

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Listen to THIS is the healthcare research podcast which explores how we can improve the quality and safety of healthcare, diving into both current and longstanding healthcare challenges and shining a light on the work that's being done to address them.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From cutting down the use of antibiotics to unnecessary lab tests and scans, how can we educate patients and staff to accept that less may be better? Overmedicalisation is often seen as a problem that can be solved by educating patients and staff to accept that less may be better.

In this episode, host Tara Lamont and guests Heather Cassie, Claire Hastings and Jane O’Hara explore some of the reasons why this can be hard for staff and systems in healthcare today.

•How do we know what to reduce or add into the system?

•Where are the trade-offs between policies, processes and patient expectations?

•The importance of trust in staff-patient relationships and how health literacy affects patient expectations

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Listen to THIS is the healthcare research podcast which explores how we can improve the quality and safety of healthcare, diving into both current and longstanding healthcare challenges and shining a light on the work that's being done to address them.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carrying out healthcare improvement research without working with the people actively embedded in the system may not translate into practice. But who should be involved and how can they contribute to enhancing research in a meaningful way.

In this episode, host Graham Martin and guests Oli Williams, Michelle Peter and Nicola Boydell unpack terms such as co-production (and how they can be misunderstood), and explore how to put these concepts into action and the ways they can inform improvement research. They’ll discuss:

• How can we amplify the voices of underrepresented groups, so we find solutions for the disparities that exist in maternal and pregnancy outcomes?
• How can engaging the right people lead to improvement within sexual and reproductive health services?
• What are the three categories of co-production and how are they used in designing healthcare services research.

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Listen to THIS is the healthcare research podcast which explores how we can improve the quality and safety of healthcare, diving into both current and longstanding healthcare challenges and shining a light on the work that's being done to address them.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over a quarter of a million people in the UK enter critical care each year. They’ll be the sickest patients, needing the most advanced care and highly skilled staff to monitor them closely.

In this episode we’ll focus on what's distinct about the critical care setting and the particular challenges for improving services and carrying out research and discuss:

•How do we take forward what we learned from the pandemic so we are prepared for future uncertainties and demands?

•What do we mean by quality and safety in the critical care environment?

•How do we get the balance right, between protocolised care and responding to the needs of patients?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Increasingly, healthcare staff are working in teams with many different professionals across different settings, but they may not have been trained to do this. What does research tell us about what makes such teams work well or better? What kind of challenges are presented in shared or integrated care?

This episode discusses:

• What is the glue that holds teams together and why is it so important?
• How can we improve the process of patient referrals from one part of the system to another?
• What did we learn from pandemic about new ways of working together, within and across services?

Listen to THIS is the healthcare research podcast which explores how we can improve the quality and safety of healthcare, diving into both current and longstanding healthcare challenges and shining a light on the work that's being done to address them.

This podcast is brought you by The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (also known as THIS Institute) at the University of Cambridge.

Listen to THIS is our podcast page where you’ll find more information about the series.

You can also follow us on LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and BlueSky.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learning from mistakes is a crucial part of healthcare improvement, and as humans, we tend to focus on the negatives. But if we concentrate on just the mistakes, are we actually hindering progress? This episode covers how learning from failure can help the NHS and healthcare systems around the world and guests will discuss:

· Positive bias in quality improvement

· Differences in academic research and service investigations

· The valuable insights we gain from when things go right – and when things go wrong.

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Listen to THIS is the healthcare research podcast which explores how we can improve the quality and safety of healthcare, diving into both current and longstanding healthcare challenges and shining a light on the work that's being done to address them. This podcast is brought you by The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (also known as THIS Institute) at the University of Cambridge.

Listen to THIS is our podcast page where you’ll find more information about the series.

You can also follow us on LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and BlueSky.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The growing pressure of workload and staff shortages – and the decline in patient satisfaction in primary care in the UK – is a topic that’s generating a lot of discussion in healthcare. This episode explores:

· How might increasing access to NHS care and changing how pathways are navigated by patients impact their experiences of the healthcare system?

· The power of multidisciplinary teams in tackling complex problems with defining the right pathway

· How does a busy GP make a judgment call when they’re balancing the pressures of time, capacity, and urgent patient needs?

· What is the system level approach, and what trade-offs have to be made?

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Listen to THIS is the healthcare research podcast which explores how we can improve the quality and safety of healthcare, diving into both current and longstanding healthcare challenges and shining a light on the work that's being done to address them. Listen to THIS is our podcast page where you’ll find more information about the series.

This podcast is brought you by The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (also known as THIS Institute) at the University of Cambridge.

At THIS Institute, we believe that action to improve healthcare should be always grounded in evidence and should generate evidence too. That’s why we work closely with patients, healthcare staff, and other stakeholders to co-create an actionable evidence base that drives real improvements in healthcare quality and safety.

Visit THIS Institute’s website for the latest healthcare improvement research.

You can also follow us on LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and BlueSky.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.