Moran, R., Butt, J., Heller, S. orcid.org/0000-0002-2425-9565 et al. (4 more authors) (2019) Health research systems in change: the case of ‘Push the Pace’ in the National Institute for Health Research. Health Research Policy and Systems, 17 (1). 37. ISSN 1478-4505
Abstract
Background Those running well-organised health research systems are likely to be alert for ways in which they might increase the quality of the services they provide and address any problems identified. This is important because the efficiency of the research system can have a major impact on how long it takes for new treatments to be developed and reach patients. This opinion piece reflects on the experience and learning of the United Kingdom-based National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) when it implemented continuous improvement activity to improve its processes.
Discussion This paper describes the structure and work of the NIHR and why, despite is successes as a health research system and ongoing local continuous improvement, it believed in the value of an organisation-wide continuous improvement activity. It did this by implementing an approach called ‘Push the Pace’. Initially, the organisation focused on reducing the amount of time it took for research to transition from an early concept to evidence that changes lives. This scrutiny enabled the NIHR to realise further areas of improvement it could make – additional goals were increased transparency, process simplification, and improved customer and stakeholder experience. We discuss our experience of Push the Pace with reference to literature on continuous improvement.
Conclusion Continuous improvement is a cycle, an activity that is done constantly and over time, rather than an act or linear activity (such as Push the Pace). We believe that the work of Push the Pace has initiated a strong commitment to a culture of continuous improvement in the NIHR. This is significant because culture change is widely recognised as immensely challenging, particularly in such a large and distributed organisation. However, our biggest challenge will be to enable all staff and stakeholders of the NIHR to participate in the continuous improvement cycle.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2019. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
Keywords: | Health research management; continuous improvement; productivity; National Institute for Health Research |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Sheffield Teaching Hospitals |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 25 Feb 2020 14:10 |
Last Modified: | 25 Feb 2020 14:18 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1186/s12961-019-0433-2 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:156085 |