Design and evaluation for national clinical practice in neurology, palliative care, and paediatrics

This project, titled PRACTICE (Process Redesign and Clinical Transformation through Iterative Co-Design and Evaluation), is a collaboration between the HSE and Trinity College Dublin.

We aim to improve how the HSE designs clinical practice documents, such as models of care, pathways and frameworks. To do this, our research team is working closely with three clinical design teams (CDTs) as they progress through their clinical design process.

Our project has three main goals:
1. Co-design and refine the clinical design process: Researchers are collaborating with CDTs, observing and supporting their work as they design new clinical documents. Insights from this collaboration will help to improve the overall clinical design process.
2. Develop and deliver training: Based on what has been learned, the team are creating and providing training for CDTs and the HSE core clinical design and innovation team. This training is helping to build skills and embed good design practices in the organisation.
3. Create Healthcare Design Toolbox:
The project is producing a practical set of tools and resources to support future CDTs. This toolbox will help standardise and improve the clinical design process across different Clinical Design Programmes.

This research is being be carried out in collaboration with the national Clinical Design teams for three national clinical programmes, Neurology, Palliative Care and Paediatrics.

What will PPI contributors do?
PPI panel members will meet with the research team to share their perspectives and ideas on the research being carried out. The collaboration will take place over two stages:

• At stage 1. The discussions will cover issues related to all three healthcare systems together and the panel will include contributors with experience of each of the three healthcare systems. This stage will also be used to explore and agree the role and scope of the PPI panels in stage 2.
• At stage 2. The contributors will be separated into three panels, one for each healthcare system (neurology, palliative care, paediatrics and neonatology) and the topics discussed will be more specifically related to those individual healthcare systems.

The types of issues that we would like your feedback on are as follows:

• The role and scope of PPI engagement with the research project
• The proposed research plan and its relationship to real-life experience
• The best method of bringing patients/carer/family perspectives into the discussions on the research
• Co-developing research materials
• Looking at questionnaires or short reports or other research materials to give the team feedback on whether these documents are acceptable from the patient partner perspective (e.g., use of language, accessibility, management of sensitive topics).
• Interpreting research findings through the lens of patient partner contributors’ personal experience
• To help guide the research team in reaching patient populations for data collection as well as for communicating research findings