Analysing Implementation in Acute Stroke (ASPIC) v1.5

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Analysing Implementation in Acute Stroke Project

  • IRAS ID

    185677

  • Contact name

    Jo Day

  • Contact email

    j.k.day@exeter.ac.uk

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    0 years, 11 months, 31 days

  • Research summary

    A persistent challenge in bringing about improvement and implementing new practices in healthcare is that differences in context across different settings make it difficult to generalise about what approach to take. These differences mean what works to change practice in one place may work partially or not at all in another. The differences may relate to personnel, organisational culture, financial considerations, physical constraints, staffing structures, styles of leadership (or absence of leadership), and so on; they may be strategic, cultural, technical, structural, or some combination of these.

    But we do not need to reinvent the implementation wheel every time we work with a new organisation or new team. Although each setting is in a sense unique there are commonalities and similarities across settings that allow established approaches to be employed if we are able to understand the contextual differences and how to approach them.

    The aim of this project is to help us understand differences in context of the implementation of a South-West Academic Health Science Network and National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care South-West Peninsula supported project to improve the emergency treatment of acute ischaemic stroke. The work has already been piloted and shown to be effective and acceptable in a single hospital site and is ready to be implemented more broadly across other hospital sites in the South West.

    The aim is not to contribute directly to the implementation but to observe the implementation of improvements to the acute stroke pathway. This will involve interviews with the project members and the NHS staff involved in service provision, observation of formal and informal meetings, and analysis of documents. Through this, we hope to gain a better understanding of the implementation process, including the barriers and facilitators to making the desired improvements in practice.

  • REC name

    N/A

  • REC reference

    N/A