The impacts of clinical academic activity: Qualitative interviews with healthcare managers and research-active nurses, midwives, allied health professionals and pharmacists
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Newington, Lisa
Alexander, Caroline M
Wells, Mary
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Objectives: To explore the perceived impacts of clinical academic activity among the professions outside medicine.
Design: Qualitative semistructured interviews.
Setting and participants: There were two groups of interviewees: Research-active nurses, midwives, allied health professionals, healthcare scientists, psychologists and pharmacists (NMAHPPs) and managers of these professions. All participants were employed in a single, multisite healthcare organisation in the UK.
Analysis: Interview transcripts were analysed using the framework method to identify key themes, subthemes and areas of divergence.
Results: Four themes were identified. The first, cultural shifts, described the perceived improvements in the approach to patient care and research culture that were associated with clinical academic activity. The second theme explored visibility and included the positive reputation that clinical academics were identified as bringing to the organisation in contrast with perceived levels of invisibility and inaccessibility of these roles. The third theme identified the impacts of the clinical academic pathways, including the precarity of these roles. The final theme explored making impact tangible, and described interviewees’ suggestions of possible methods to record and demonstrate impact.
Conclusions: Perceived positive impacts of NMAHPP clinical academic activity focused on interlinked positive changes for patients and clinical teams. This included delivery of evidence-based healthcare, patient involvement in clinical decision making and improved staff recruitment and retention. However, the positive impacts of clinical academic activity often centred around individual clinicians and did not necessarily translate throughout the organisation. The current clinical academic pathway was identified as causing tension between the perceived value of clinical academic activity and the need to find sufficient staffing to cover clinical services.
Design: Qualitative semistructured interviews.
Setting and participants: There were two groups of interviewees: Research-active nurses, midwives, allied health professionals, healthcare scientists, psychologists and pharmacists (NMAHPPs) and managers of these professions. All participants were employed in a single, multisite healthcare organisation in the UK.
Analysis: Interview transcripts were analysed using the framework method to identify key themes, subthemes and areas of divergence.
Results: Four themes were identified. The first, cultural shifts, described the perceived improvements in the approach to patient care and research culture that were associated with clinical academic activity. The second theme explored visibility and included the positive reputation that clinical academics were identified as bringing to the organisation in contrast with perceived levels of invisibility and inaccessibility of these roles. The third theme identified the impacts of the clinical academic pathways, including the precarity of these roles. The final theme explored making impact tangible, and described interviewees’ suggestions of possible methods to record and demonstrate impact.
Conclusions: Perceived positive impacts of NMAHPP clinical academic activity focused on interlinked positive changes for patients and clinical teams. This included delivery of evidence-based healthcare, patient involvement in clinical decision making and improved staff recruitment and retention. However, the positive impacts of clinical academic activity often centred around individual clinicians and did not necessarily translate throughout the organisation. The current clinical academic pathway was identified as causing tension between the perceived value of clinical academic activity and the need to find sufficient staffing to cover clinical services.
Date Issued
2021-10-07
Date Acceptance
2021-09-13
Citation
BMJ Open, 2021, 11 (10)
ISSN
2044-6055
Publisher
BMJ Journals
Journal / Book Title
BMJ Open
Volume
11
Issue
10
Copyright Statement
© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Sponsor
NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre (BRC)
Grant Number
P79998
Subjects
education & training (see medical education & training)
organisation of health services
qualitative research
1103 Clinical Sciences
1117 Public Health and Health Services
1199 Other Medical and Health Sciences
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN e050679
Date Publish Online
2021-10-07