Action research underway in WSDAN member sites
Nick Goodwin
Since the inaugural meeting of the WSDAN membership – held in October last year – the WSDAN team have been busy initiating a programme of ‘action research’. This approach focuses on enabling individuals from each member site to engage in critical and in-depth reflection and development through group learning. Using ‘improvement methodology’ this learning will be captured and disseminated on an ongoing basis to benefit WSDAN members. We will also feed back regularly to the Department of Health’s Whole System Demonstrator Programme evaluation team.
The key aims of the action research approach are to:
- identify and understand implementation barriers
- evaluate and feed back on progress
- showcase evidence of best practice
- undertake goal-focused peer learning
- strengthen the evidence base
- produce and disseminate knowledge to a wider audience.
The first stage of this research – undertaken between October and December 2008 – has been face-to-face visits at each of the sites to establish baseline information on their current and future telecare and telehealth innovations and, where more than one approach was being developed, to choose one for further investigation.
We created a standard template to generate baseline data to help us to understand the aims of the project (including patient and system benefits) including goals to be met over time; data collection and measures used to evaluate outcomes; and the organisational and management changes being implemented to facilitate change.
Goal-oriented feedback sessions with the sites over the next two years will help us to understand the impact of these innovations, as well as the barriers and facilitators to progress that have generic lessons for others. Detailed evidence is being collated in online project wikis, which allow all members to access each others plans, as well as enabling a ‘living’ site of information that can be continually updated.
The site visits were also designed to provide a degree of one-to-one development support for members, and many of the emerging developmental themes have been used to inform ongoing support through online discussion and support forums, and bespoke face-to-face meetings for members. The agendas for WSDAN’s regional roadshows – the first of which was held at the Oval in London on 22 January – have also been developed based on the emerging needs of members, but with greater specific expert content and the opportunity for wider networking.
News of the innovations being established in each of the WSDAN member sites will be revealed next month, but the action research team is already beginning to learn much about the implementation and organisational processes that need to be established (for example, the importance of leaders with the energy and commitment to commission and deliver new services, and the development of strategies that can sustain innovations over time).
Nick Goodwin is a Senior Fellow at The King’s Fund and co-project lead for WSDAN