Organisations as thought leaders; some healthcare examples

Thought leadership is not just about individuals. For many organisations, their mission is to be the thought leader in their sector.  I’ve listed below the healthcare related organisations that I believe to be thought leaders.

·     The Health Foundation  in London practices a pragmatic and sensible thought leadership. They base their knowledge around programs of work, linked the more academic reviews. They share knowledge very well and a great example is their work on Self Managements where all the materials can be accessed, free of charge, including train the trainer packs.  They take on new ideas and put them to work in programs. They are prepared to take risks and their work is subject to evaluation – which is also shared.  They are a charity so have no need to sell – and this shows.

·     The Kings Fund, London,  is a traditional thought leader for healthcare. They’ve moved into blogs and videos, and other social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, as a means to share their news and views – and to help others connect. They are best loved for the discussions they hold. These are tough questions with a wide range of people taking part. They empower thought leadership in others, which is very magnanimous of them.

·     The Nuffield Trust is another UK based organisation which is a thought leader, in a fairly tightly packed thought leadership arena. They are probably best known for their sharp and necessary evaluations and reviews of policies and programs. They are trusted because they are independent and not in anyone’s funding pocket. They do blogs, publications, videos and some excellent charts.

·    The Institute for Healthcare Improvement  in Boston.  This is a well-known organisation for its work in developing strategies for improvement and in bringing together groups of interested people to share. Like any organisation, they have something to sell. However, they are quick to share new ideas in white papers and make many of their materials available to anyone, free of charge. (excepting their conferences which are notoriously expensive).

i    The other articles in this series are:

1. What or who is a thought leader
2. Being a thought leader

Research: How engaged are patients in their healthcare

The Heatth Foundation has released an excellent report on their research into patient engagement. It's one of the most up to date and significant reports I'e seen on this topic for a long time. It makes for some uncomfortable reading, especially regarding patients who have long term conditions.  There is a summary report, but I commend the full version for required reading for all NHS Commissioners and those working on improvemet projects.

Report: Cross Sector Working to Support Large Scale Change

The Health Foundation has come up trumps with a fabulous light touch literature scan of evidence around how cross sector working influences large scale change.

I commend you to read it.

Evidence: Quality Improvement Training

The Health Foundation has released a useful, and I think important, scan of the literature surrounding the strategy, content and process of training others in quality improvement. The document is a comprehensive and well organised summary of their scan of an enormous number of papers.  You can download the 52 page PDF from their website.

What  I liked about this literature scan is their focus on the impact of training. If you are responsible for organising or delivering quality improvement training then I recommend this literature review.

Research Scan Service from The Health Foundation

I love it when an organisation, as part of their general offering, provides support for busy people. The Health Foundation has an excellent research scan service which picks up what has recently been published, assesses it, and then sorts it all into easy to access topics.

Highly commended.

You can sign up for free access and to receive regular updates.

Self Management Support Tools and Resources

Hoorah! We're finally moving from what often feels the patronising approach of "empowering patients" to finding ways to truly be partners in their care process.  There are multiple projects and programs round the world which demonstrate what can be done.  I've put together a list of resources which you may find useful.

1. My favourite are from The Health Foundation. Their package is comprehensive and includes materials for training staff so is excellent for getting the message out there in a practical way. They've also got resources for improving patient skills.

2. The Institute for Improvement has a short guide which is useful if you want to check what you may need to do to get some benefits.

3. There's an excellent write up about the long term conditions collaborative in Scotland where they identify the top high impact changes you can make.

4. Selfmanagement,.co.uk also has resources and it's one of the few places I've seen where there's information on relevant published literature.  In fact, the more I look at this website, the more I feel it is perhaps the most comprehensive and useful...

Do you have any favourite self management support resource links you'd like to share? Please comment below and I'll add to this blog.

How safe are clinical systems - report on the evidence by The Health Foundation

This report for The Health Foundation is excellent. I like the way it is based on research and whilst it doesn't cover any specifically new ground, it does provide insight for anyone wishing to improve the safety of patients in hospital. 

"While the knowledge that poor systems can cause harm is not new, this report provides groundbreaking evidence of the extent to which important clinical systems and processes fail, and the potential these failings have to harm patients.

The results of this study, covering seven NHS organisations, identify the variation in the reliability of five key healthcare systems and processes:

• availability of information when making clinical decisions
• prescribing
• handover
• availability of equipment in operating theatres
• availability of equipment for inserting intravenous lines.

The research, led by Professor Bryony Dean-Franklin, was conducted by The Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality (CPSSQ) at Imperial College, and Warwick Clinical Systems Improvement (CSI), University of Warwick."