Dr Ruth Baxter

Background
Ruth is a Senior Research Fellow within the YQSR Group. She graduated from Newcastle University with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology in 2007 and completed her MSc in Psychological Approaches to Health at the University of Leeds in 2013. Ruth was awarded her PhD in 2016 following a joint studentship with the YQSR Group and the University of Leeds. Her research, which was funded by The Health Foundation, explored how the Positive Deviance approach can be applied within healthcare organisations to improve patient safety. Ruth is currently working on a NIHR funded Programme Grant for Applied Health Research called ‘Partners At Care Transitions (PACT)’. This programme of work aims to improve the safety and experience of care for older patients (and their family/carers) as they move from hospital to home. Prior to conducting health services research, Ruth worked in the NHS (acute mental health) and within Human Resources (leadership and development).

Research interests
Ruth’s research interests focus on improving the safety of patient care. She is interested in the use and evaluation of Improvement Science methods such as the positive deviance approach, adopting a Safety-II and resilience engineering approach to improving healthcare, patient involvement in patient safety, and using psychological approaches to improve the quality and safety of healthcare services.