Occupational Therapy News OTnews January 2019 | Page 36
FEATURE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
network CoRNN (Collaboration for Research Neurology
Network), which is a city-wide research network for
developing neurological research, and she is also a founder
member of a community of practice of clinical academic
occupational therapists called SOTCA @SheffOTCA.
In 2015, Natalie was awarded the UKOTRF Early
Researcher Award and was a finalist for her research
champion activities at the National Advancing Health Care
Awards in 2018.
Creating a research culture takes time, patience, tenacity
and strategic development (Jones 2015). There are a number
of enablers that support the growth of research cultures,
and Natalie also outlines her five top tips for engaging staff in
research and building research capacity:
Create a research team that includes managers:
involving managers as research team members can help to
overcome some of the barriers to doing clinical research.
Managers can enable research to take place by supporting generated together on how to overcome obstacles.
A licence to be creative (occupational therapists
are good at this): notice gaps in the research evidence
where occupational therapists could contribute to healthcare
innovation and build collaborations with the academic
partners who have expertise in these areas, they will value our
contribution.
Start small and build over time, think about audit and
service evaluation projects as a precursor to developing an
evidence base for research.
Look for funding streams and small pockets of money,
including those from charitable trusts, use income generated
from courses and overseas students to re-invest into
research capacity building activities.
Consider a variation of research capability building
activities such as workshops forums and education
opportunities, this will help keep momentum going and share
your vision widely.
backfill arrangements and secondments and also play an
important role in embedding research outcomes into practice.
If managers are part of the research team they can
observe the benefits of clinical research more closely and
help establish new innovations into clinical practice. Having
a team of individuals from different organisations, academic,
healthcare and third sector together with patients at the
centre, can strengthen research delivery and as patients
move across services in the healthcare system so can
research (Jones 2016).
Be bold and brave in your ambition and vision, but
realise you might be more like the tortoise than the
hare: start with a burning ambition, discuss as a team what
research topics motivate you, and choose topics that you are
passionate about. There are many benefits to doing clinical
research, discuss them widely to create engagement in your
ambition and vision to become a research active team.
Create a forum for managers to discuss operational
matters including the challenges and enablers to research.
Share impact stories, this is crucial to getting buy-in and
support for your vision.
Developing a critical mass of research champions and
leaders is key to success. This can be self-appointed clinical
champions, managers and researchers at all levels.
Work on getting executive buy-in and sponsorship from
people that can help you achieve your vision.
Find ways to keep the momentum going and anchor
to a strategic plan: co-produce a research strategy with
your staff; this is your anchor to keep you on course for
realising your vision.
Talk about why research active organisations are better
for patients, review the research evidence for this and share
research impact stories. It is just as important to spend time
discussing the barriers to clinical research and all of the
reasons ‘why not to do research’ so that solutions can be Occupational therapists are motivated by patient stories
and real life clinical problems, research networks are a good
way to create energy, momentum, commitment and incubate
research ideas.
Tell your stories of success, celebrate and share impacts:
Research impact stories are very powerful. The benefits of
clinical research are not always visible, so try to find ways
to make visible, elevate and amplify your impact stories to
those that can influence your research development such as
mangers and system leaders.
‘One of the biggest challenges for clinicians face to
engaging in and with research is releasing time from clinical
practice,’ Natalie says. ‘Management commitment to
overcome these obstacles will enable clinicians to think and
work differently to develop research capacity and ultimately
improve patient care.’
36 OTnews January 2019
References
Cooke J, Nancarrow S, Dyas J, Williams M. (2008) An evaluation of
the ‘Designated Research Team’ approach to building research
capacity in primary care. BMC Family Practice 9:37 doi:
10.1186/1471-2296-9-37
Jones N (2015) Creating conditions for growing collaborative
research in occupational therapy, British Journal of Occupational
Therapy 78(8):15
Jones N (2016) Growing collaborative research in occupational
therapy: can you hardwire research into clinical practice?
Occupational Therapy News 24(8) 46-47
For further information, please contact Natalie Jones, acting
head of occupational therapy at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals
NHS Trust, at: [email protected] or Patricia
McIlwaine, clinical lead occupational therapist, Northern
Health and Social Care Trust, Northern Ireland McIlwaine, at:
[email protected]