THIS Institute (The Healthcare Improvement Studies) was created by the University of Cambridge and the Health Foundation and offers prestigious fellowships to lead an extended period of research and contribute to the development of the field of healthcare improvement studies. Eilidh is one of three postdoctoral fellows appointed within the first cohort of these awards which aim to grow capacity and capability in healthcare improvement research. Her fellowship will include leadership development, mentoring and membership of THIS Institute’s Community of Scholars (a network and professional learning community for improvement studies).
Eilidh’s fellowship will run over the next three and a half years and will focus on improving the evidence base for Audit and Feedback. Audit and Feedback is a widely used, effective intervention to improve the implementation of guidelines and research evidence into clinical practice. It involves providing health professionals with data on how often they do and do not follow best practice. Although Audit and Feedback works to improve healthcare delivery overall, it is designed and delivered in lots of different ways and sometimes it can achieve a big improvement in healthcare and sometimes only a small improvement. The science behind how, why and when it works best is limited and Eilidh’s project is designed to help answer these questions to optimise Audit and Feedback interventions to achieve enhanced healthcare delivery.