28 Focus
Setting the agenda Pamela Hussey and Sharon Farrell summarise the recent research activities of the Center for eIntegrated Care
The research activity of the International Classification for Nursing Practice Research and Development Center DCU has evolved over the past three years into an interdis- ciplinary research centre called the Center for eIntegrated Care (CeIC). The mission of CeIC is to advance eIntegrated care in order to improve the health and wellbe- ing of citizens. A number of awards are in progress and additional research propos- als, summarised in the Table, have been submitted. Following the completion of strategic planning for the centre in 2018, we are now focusing our attention on two key areas. Firstly, on building structures to support eHealth Ireland and secondly, on increas- ing capacity and building on our core mission. We are focusing on developing infrastructure to support integrated care services in accordance with national policy, ie. the Sláintecare Implementation Plan. We believe that for new organisational forms to advance, structure is required. No planned strategy can be implemented with- out the correct structure and the wrong structure will deliver the wrong strategy. Underpinning our structures is a health informatics, state-of-the-art evidence base. Moving away from old-school centralised structures where projects are microman- aged, we are embracing Open Innovation 2.0 in line with EU policy to assist practi- tioners in building capacity on informatics competencies and leadership skills. These activities are focused on autono- mous decision-making and critical thinking with clearly defined goals and timelines. Given the global trend on chronic disease and the skill mix, resource and retention issues facing health and social care, we believe this is the most pragmatic way to approach the challenges facing nursing and midwifery now and in the future. National agendas In early 2019, our chief informatics nurs- ing officer, Loretto Grogan established a National Advisory Group. ICNP R&D, while not participating in this group, understands members are engaged in the development of a strategic plan for nursing and midwifery in Ireland. We hope that the standardisation
Table: Summary of ICNP R&D and CeIC activities
Activity
Deliverables
Chair of ICNP task force with members of ICNP community Application for two Fulbright scholarships to explore IoT and its application in community services with nursing services on chronic disease management ICNP Milan meeting presentation on applied informatics research work funded through national eHealth Ireland Interoperability Platform Application for EU funding to coordinate large scale pilot of personalised and outcome-based integrated care services in four EU member states Two publications submitted on research activity relating to terminology and modelling services to eHealth Ireland Enterprise Ireland research funding
Report to ICN, June 2019
Two Fulbright Scholarships awarded commencing in September 2019 – June 2020
Three proposals funded
Presentation and network meeting in Milan, December 2018
Application for €4.9 million submitted in April 2019 with 12 EU partners, including EFN as a major partner for dissemination
Submitted in May 2019
Scholarship groups
Currently a number of scholarship groups in progress with proposals in draft: • Standardisation of nursing language for EHR • Intellectual disability services working group • International collaboration with ICNP agendas • Computer science heterogeneity and interoperability semantic ontology research cluster • Two undergraduate summer internships
Post-doctoral researcher PhD by research current
One Two Two
PhD by research new 2019-2020
of nursing language will form part of the focus for this group and we look forward to assimilating reports as they emerge. The national advisory group is coordinating with the Snomed CT National Release Centre of Ireland. Education We are progressing with activity relat- ing to knowledge transfer and capacity building. Such initiatives provide the cul- tural glue required to instigate the eHealth transformation. CeIC continues to edu- cate at undergraduate and postgraduate level on health informatics competencies. At postgraduate level, these modules are interdisciplinary focused and assignments relate to practice-based initiatives. We also provide training to industry, clinical and policy analysts. We have three PhD stu- dents active in the centre and additional applications for next year are in progress.
The purpose of our research is to create resources capable of evolving with con- temporary health and social care needs and provide services that support sustain- ability. National leaders are implementing policy to re-orient the models of care; we advocate that nursing and allied healthcare professions have a critical role in partici- pating in the design process, particularly in regard to clinical utility and patient safety. The overarching agenda for CeIC is to pro- duce resources for the delivery of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 – ensure healthy lives and promote wellbe- ing for all at all ages. For further information contact sharon. farrell@dcu.ie – a recently published online open access paper about the center’s activ- ities can be accessed at www.mdpi.com Pamela Hussey is the director of the Center for eIntegrated Care and Sharon Farrell is the project co-ordinator
Powered by FlippingBook