2. Themes for this morning
• Lessons from WSD – ‘the 7 deadly sins’
• Research purpose and audience – getting it right
• What do we need now – the frontline view
3. Lessons from WSD – the 7 deadly sins
WSD had some real positives but also some real issues in terms of research:
1. Understanding whether the data is available to meet the needs of the study – work from facts
and not assumptions
2. Changing the ‘goalposts’ in terms of specific data required for collection – should all be
agreed up front without deviation to avoid re-work
3. Have a research team staffed sufficiently to meet the timescales – it always felt ‘light’ and
timescales reflected this
4. Use research methodology that is useful to the real world audience – the QALY method is
not something used in business case development for Telehealth / Telecare
5. Agree a standard method for data collection which is consistent and is a shared system
6. Think more about the audience when collecting data from the public – ‘questionnaires the
size of encyclopedia’ are not conducive to good quality answers from an over 65 audience
7. Understand the time taken for publishing and factor that into the study methodology and
outputs – costs of running Telehealth now are very different to those 3-4 years ago
4. Research Purpose & Audience – Getting it
right
“Research doesn’t always relate to what is needed in the real world”
• WSD was fundamentally for the DH and government to test out the impact of
assistive technology – they were the principle audience – they are just one
audience of many that should be considered
• Should the principle audience not be those at the frontline who are going to use
the information and make decisions on it?
• Not enough thought was given to the decision makers: PCT, CCG’s, GP’s and
Councils
• The result is: still too many unanswered questions particularly around the impact
on primary care, the business case for Telehealth and the quality of life of
patients
5. What do we need now – view from the frontline
• Research that means something to those that are going to use it to make decisions – outputs
need to relate specifically to this
• Some suggestions would be:
– More detailed study into cost impact with the focus across all care providers using
‘hard’ data – this is what is used in business cases
– A study into quality of life and technology impact that uses ‘experience interviewing’
techniques and not large questionnaires
– A study specific to Primary Care looking at the impact of technology based care on GP
practices – they are now the decision makers
– Focus on different conditions for Telehealth away from the big three
“The purpose of research should be to answer a question and for that question to
then inform others to make decisions – the original research question must always
factor in the decision makers and what they want to know”
6. “The trouble with research is that it tells you what people were thinking about yesterday,
not tomorrow. Its like driving a car using a rearview mirror” Loomis
