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WISER

Warwick and Imperial Study to Enhance Reliability in Healthcare (WISER)

funded by The Health Foundation (2008 - 2010)

Overview

Launched by the Health Foundation in October 2008, the Safer Clinical Systems programme will test and demonstrate ways to improve healthcare systems or processes to improve patient safety. Experienced teams from five NHS sites are working together with expert advisers to co-design the initial phase of the programme.


The aim of WISER is to provide support to Phase 1 of the SCS project, including input to the design of Phase 2 (to be launched in the summer of 2010), by systematically identifying and documenting the nature, type and variation of defects in specific points of the care pathway and their potential for patient harm.


The research study will employ a mixed methods approach using both qualitative and quantitative analysis, based around six specific topics. Each topic will be studied in three organisations. The Health Foundation have commissioned this research to strengthen the evidence base relating to the impact of healthcare systems reliability on patient safety, and in doing so, create a compelling case that a systems focus in patient safety is required to avoid the negative impact that defects in this area can cause.


Results

The full project report and a summary report of key findings are available for download here.

Press release by The Health Foundation.


Project team

Bryony Dean Franklin
Susan Burnett
Alison Holmes
Krishna Moorthy
Charles Vincent
Matthew Cooke
Mark Alexander Sujan
Vashist Deelchand
Emmanuelle Savarit


Related material

A short beginners guide to Getting Started with Reliability that I developed for our Masters module "A Systems Approach to Patient Safety".