What is the positive change that has emerged through new collaborations or partnerships during Covid-19 that your project is going to embed?

We have seen an extraordinary and unprecedented response from healthcare staff to ensure continued care delivery during the pandemic. There is much that we can learn from these experiences of rapid innovation, change and adaptation of services. We propose to collect and explore staff narratives of innovation and adaptation to make care delivery effective, efficient, and safe during the COVID-19 response. In partnership with multiple collaborators in the Irish health service and with patients, we will analyse narratives to extract learning on how QI training has been applied during the pandemic, to what extent this has been effective, and why. There is a unique opportunity to learn from these narratives to improve the quality of service changes throughout and beyond this pandemic by understanding how QI methods and non-technical skills have been utilised to promote rapid change, and to embed this learning in education, training and practical guides for staff.

What does your project aim to achieve?

Aim: To conduct an in-depth analysis of staff experiences of the extraordinary delivery of healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic response in order to generate practical, applied learning for the continued reform and improvement of care delivery services and QI education. The beneficiaries will extend beyond the Irish health system as these experiences are similar across contexts and thus learning will be broadly generalisable.

a)  Understanding the organisational barriers/enablers during the pandemic and how these differed from the non-COVID situation.

b)  Identifying the key motivators and mechanisms that prompted staff to engage in joint problem-solving and extra-role behaviours to inform QI interventions.

c)  Assessing the extent to which QI training influenced adaptations and to what extent QI methods were used to improve/adapt services to reduce inequalities and promote access.

d) Translate this learning into practical advice/supports for QI practitioners and trainees.

e) Explore staff resilience and the sustainability of QI implementations/efforts

How will the project be delivered?

The Lead Applicant and UCD IRIS team are already collaborating closely with the Irish National Quality Improvement team on multiple projects related to QI training and evaluation. This work seeks to expand this collaborative to include HSE Values in Action, Human Resources and Communications teams to meet the shared goal of learning from innovative practice and experiences of team working and develop synergies to ensure knowledge is shared across the health service and more broadly across the entire Q Community. This team have a track record of delivering impactful research and have the requisite expertise and links to ensure findings inform decision-making, practice, and policy (e.g., to influence/inform planned interventions in staff engagement, to inform training programmes in QI ). Findings will be of international interest given the pivotal role staff have played in helping to contain the spread of COVID-19 whilst still delivering crucial services without overwhelming the health system.

How is your project going to share learning?

Our collaborative approach will ensure ongoing knowledge exchange with all stakeholders, including the Q Community, during the project.

Patients & public: We will prepare a plain English summary of the research and create infographics and webinars for dissemination jointly by the health service to the public, patients and the health service. We will seek to co-deliver research findings to ensure findings are presented in accessible and meaningful ways.

Practitioners & policymakers: We will communicate our findings during targeted webinars/recordings. We will produce practical guidance and strategies for QI practitioners to support them through our learning of what has been effective elsewhere and why. Short videos, infographics, summaries of the findings and key recommendations will be shared via our networks and via the Q Community.

Academic audiences: We will present the research findings at conferences and will also share findings via publications in international journals (BMJ Quality & Safety).