Dr. Graham Martin, professor of health organization and policy at the University of Leicester, will be visiting the College of Public Health in early May. He will take part in an informal question-and-answer session on May 7 and will deliver a research presentation on May 8. Both presentations, which are detailed below, are free and open to all.

Q&A Discussion
Similarities and Differences between the US and UK Health Care Systems

Thursday, May 7
10 – 11:30 a.m.
N202 CPHB

Everyone is invited to this informal question-and-answer session.

Research Seminar
Beyond metrics? Utilizing “soft intelligence” for health care quality and safety

Friday, May 8
Noon – 1:00 p.m.
N120 CPHB

Recent reports in the United Kingdom have exposed problems with the quality and safety of care, most notably at Stafford Hospital in central England, where estimates based on standardized mortality ratios indicate that many more patients than might be expected died at the hospital over several years in the late 2000s. Raw metrics, however, do not tell the whole story about the quality of care, and several reports and reviews following the scandal at Stafford—notably, a high-profile public inquiry led by a high-court judge¹ and a government-commissioned report led by Donald Berwick,² former president of the United States Institute for Healthcare Improvement—have called for healthcare policymakers and administrators to make greater use of insights into quality of care deriving from professionals, patients and carers, given acknowledged limitations of quantitative data, and revelations about how such ‘softer’ forms of intelligence were ignored or glossed over at Stafford. There are, however, many unanswered questions about how such insights might be collected, interpreted, and put to use.

This presentation draws on 107 in-depth qualitative interviews with senior stakeholders in the NHS, including those in clinical and managerial roles, to address the question of what forms this soft intelligence might take, and its utility and limits as a source of knowledge for diagnosing and addressing problems of healthcare quality and safety.

Participants saw value in soft intelligence and in the way it could reveal issues often obscured by conventional metrics, but struggled with the challenge of collecting and interpreting it to produce valid and reliable insights. The approaches they described risked replicating the limitations of hard, quantitative data. We highlight alternative approaches that suggested ways of obtaining, interpreting, and utilizing soft intelligence that make best use of the unique insights that it offers, drawing on ideas from organizational sociology and psychology. The value of soft intelligence lies not only in its ability to substantiate issues identified through conventional ways of knowing, but also in its potential to disrupt taken-for-granted assumptions about quality and safety and organizational performance. Using soft intelligence in this way is challenging and discomfiting, but offers, we argue, an important defence against the complacency that can precede calamity.

About Dr. Martin

Dr. Martin’s research focuses on various issues in the organization and delivery of health and social care, including:

• The implementation of health and social care policy
• Organizational change, management and the professions
• Patient and public participation in health

After studying geography at Oxford and Bristol, Dr. Martin worked for three years at the Leicester Nuffield Research Unit in the Department of Health Sciences on various research projects, including a national evaluation of intermediate care. From 2004 to 2009, he worked at the University of Nottingham on further health-related research projects, including an evaluation of pilot NHS genetics initiatives. He also studied for his PhD, a study of service-user involvement in cancer-genetics provision.  He returned to Leicester to join the SAPPHIRE Group as senior lecturer in October 2009, and was promoted to a personal chair in April 2012.

Further information about his work can be found at leicester.academia.edu/GrahamMartin.

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1. Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry. Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry (3 volumes). London: The Stationery Office, 2013. Available at http://www.midstaffspublicinquiry.com/report

2.National Advisory Group on the Safety of Patients in England. A promise to learn – a commitment to act: improving the safety of patients in England. London: Department of Health, 2013. Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/226703/Berwick_Report.pdf

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact the College of Public Health in advance at 319-384-1500.