Abstract: Patient safety has established itself as a multidisciplinary research arena for over 2 decades. During this time, a number of high profile safety-improvement interventions have been developed and evaluated, with some showing very promising results in scientific trials and other studies. Yet, descriptive evidence and anecdotal accounts from the frontline of healthcare delivery suggest that some of these interventions have struggled to gain adequate traction within routine health services – such that their expected positive impact on patient outcomes has not always been consistent.
In this seminar I will explore some of the above barriers, with specific examples from acute healthcare. I will offer an overview of the basic tenets of implementation science and reflect on their application within the current evidence base for patient safety. I will conclude the seminar with a call for reflection and debate with the audience regarding the need for further patient safety studies that evaluate clinical effectiveness, compared to studies that focus on implementation effectiveness instead – arguing that the latter are now more timely than ever.
Biography: A psychologist by training, Nick is Director of the Centre for Implementation Science at King’s College London, Academic Director of the Quality Improvement and Implementation Science Clinical Academic Group within King’s Health Partners, Chief Editor of BMJ Simulation and Technology Enhanced Learning and Associate Editor of Implementation Science. His research is situated at the interface of patient safety, improvement and implementation sciences. For the past 15 years, Nick has been studying perioperative and cancer pathways, aiming to address human factors in care delivery; to understand barriers and drivers of implementing and sustaining evidence-based improvement interventions; and to increase capacity to undertake safety and quality improvement at the frontline of healthcare delivery. His research has been disseminated in over 300 publications and chapters to-date.