Examination of video reflexive ethnography in an acute medical unit
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Improving the safety of inter-professional collaboration in an Acute Medical Unit: an examination of the feasibility and implementation of video reflexive ethnography in UK healthcare
IRAS ID
235759
Contact name
Bruce Guthrie
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Dundee
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Acute Medical Units (AMUs) are the first ward that almost all people with medical emergencies are admitted to either by their GP or from Accident and Emergency. AMUs are both complex and risky clinical environments, with most risk effectively managed by staff, patients and carers working together. While patient safety research has largely focused on a ‘measure and manage’ approach, current research is starting to examine ‘how things go right’ in clinical teams. One such approach is Video Reflexive Ethnography (VRE) and this has been used successfully in the Netherlands and Australia.
This is a one year, qualitative, scoping study investigating how VRE can be applied as both a methodology and an improvement tool for inter-professional teamwork in AMUs.
The project consists of three phases.
Phase 1: Safety practices in the AMU. This involves conducting interviews, observations and video filming. The process of data gathering is iterative and reflexive: each data type informing the others.
Phase 2: Patient experience of AMU care. We do this by interviewing people aged 60-75 following discharge from the AMU. People in this age range often have multiple care needs, so their treatment is often complex. Carers (partners or friends or relatives) will be included in this data gathering phase, if appropriate.Phase 3: The applicability of Video Reflexive Ethnography to healthcare improvement. This phase employs Reflexive Sessions with AMU staff. These are structured feed-back, focused sessions where selected short clips of professional work and patients talking about their care are used to constructively analyse and identify safe practice as well as areas for improvement.
Findings from this study are intended help to inform the future safety of AMUs and the methodological development of VRE in the UK healthcare context.REC name
North West - Preston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/NW/0618
Date of REC Opinion
23 Oct 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion