Charlotte Overton
RN (Adult), RNT, BSc (Hons) Nursing, MMed Sci (Clinical Education)
Room: B22 (South Building)
Tel: +44 (0) 115 8467750
Email: lixcap@nottingham.ac.uk
Current Status: Completed
Year of Registration: 2014
Expected Completion Date: /09/2017
Primary Funding Source:The Health Foundation
Research Topic:A Comparative Case Study of the Implementation of Standardised Tools in Healthcare: the active role everyday technologies play in quality improvement.
Research Details:Many quality improvement initiatives and safety interventions hinge on the introduction of novel material and symbolic artefacts into established social practices, often designed to organise and support work activity by bringing about behaviour change in the workplace. During the 1990's medical sociologists embraced a more dynamic way of analysing medical technologies by drawing on the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies. The central tenant to technology-in-practice is the assumption that artefacts have a generative power that arises from the inter-relationship of the artefact and its users in action.
Drawing on debates in technology-in-practice and the sociology of professions, I critically examine how the artefacts of quality improvement are implemented into secondary care. Using a qualitative case study and ethnographic methods of interviews, observation and documentary analysis, the fieldwork focuses upon two acute Trusts as sites for the implementation of artefacts associated with the sepsis care bundle and intentional rounding. These examples of a care bundle and checklist have been selected as they involve the engagement of doctors, nurses and nursing assistants. Data will be analysed using thematic analysis. Fieldwork commenced in December 2015.
This research contributes to theorising the operation of artefacts associated with quality improvement as they intersect with existing socio-technical arrangements. From a practical perspective it will seek to understand the process through which quality improvement is inscribed into the infrastructure from the perspectives of key stakeholders. The research will also contribute towards how implementation programmes and transformation strategies are developed and operationalised.
Research Supervisor/s: Justin Waring, Emma Rowley and
Stephen Timmons
Department: Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Management
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