Maximising Recovery from
Acute Illness and Trauma
The Programme
The medical management of acute conditions has improved dramatically in the last few decades, new technologies and specialisms have developed, and costs have risen. The implications for clinical management and patient experience of care need to be explored so that care can be based on sound evidence. The developments in acute illness and trauma management and their associated costs also require innovation in service models and workforce configuration, to ensure maximum and cost effective benefit from developments. NMAHPs are assuming new responsibilities and work roles in this process. This programme aims to support patients to “be all they can be” and to maximise their quality of life following a period of acute illness or trauma. This involves the patient journey from the immediate phase of acute illness/treatment in acute settings, to rehabilitation and recovery in both acute and non-acute settings of various kinds. The programme also aims to support NMAHPs in realising their full potential contribution to service change.
Key Research Themes
The programme will explore patients’, their unpaid carers’ and staff’s experience of, and active contribution to, the process of recovery in different settings. It will address broad themes
-
Organisational change and redesign of tertiary, secondary and primary care medical and social care interfaces
-
Patient and unpaid caregiver participation in decision-making about care
-
Discharge planning and development of sustainable long term care for people after acute care and recovery.
Methodologies
A range of research methods is available to address these questions.
-
Quantitative methods capturing broad patterns of relationships between context, interventions and outcomes. This includes identification and development of robust outcome measures.
-
Qualitative methods capturing patients’, their unpaid carers’ and staff’s day-to day care interactions, the outcomes of interactions and people’s experience of care.
-
Mixed methods designs which relate individual experience to wider organisational and structural factors
-
Service redesign and action research methods which involve practitioners, patients and carers as research participants and directly integrate research with practice.
Programme Lead
Dr Guro Huby is the programme lead for Maximising Recovery from Acute Illness and Trauma and is based at the University of Edinburgh.
CIHR Funded Postdoctoral Fellowship
Dr Lisa Salisbury has been appointed by CIHR as Postdoctoral Research Fellow under the Maximising Recovery from Acute Illness and Trauma. The aim of this programme of research is to investigate recovery of physical, psychological and nutritional function following a prolonged ICU stay.
CIHR Funded PhD Studentship
Jane Christie and Pam Ramsay have been funded by CIHR to carry out a PhD under the Maximising Recovery from Acute Illness and Trauma programme.
Externally Funded Research (Dr Guro Huby)
Dr Huby has been awarded external funding for the following:
-
The role of ‘Practitioners with Special Interests’ in Redesign of respiratory services
-
Financial incentives and moral motivation among English and Scots general medical practitioners
-
The contribution of ethnography to research in health service organization and delivery: proposal for an expert meeting
-
Evidence into practice in Quality Improvement of Scottish integrated health and social care
-
Describing compliance with and identifying barriers and facilitators to the implementation of SIGN 63 (The British Guideline for the Management of Asthma) in a rural health board
-
Public Services; What changes when incentives change in primary care?
-
‘Doing Well by People with Depression’: evaluation of the national programme
For further information on the projects or for a full list of research projects funded under this programme please contact us