Research collaboration helps healthcare professionals ‘visualize the invisible’
MUMBAI: Researchers from different disciplines across Scotland have joined forces in a new initiative to help healthcare staff prevent and control healthcare associated infections.
With Norovirus, MRSA and Clostridium difficile, continuing to be a risk to patient recovery, and increasing resistance to antibiotics, a new collaboration has been formed to study how staff think about these invisible threats and to look at ways to make them seem more visible.
Led by experts from Robert Gordon University’s (RGU) Institute for Health and Welfare Research (IHWR) and the university’s Institute for Innovation Design and Sustainability (IDEAS), the 20 month “Visinvis” project has involved nursing, art and design researchers working with microbiologists, cleaners, nurses, estates staff and patient representatives.
In conjunction with colleagues at the University of Dundee, Glasgow School of Art, NHS Grampian, NHS Lanarkshire, NHS Education for Scotland, and Health Protection Scotland, the team at RGU secured close to £100,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Scottish Funding Council to fund the research.
Project leader, Dr Colin Macduff from RGU, said: “Although we know much about the germs or pathogens that cause these infections, we know much less about how front-line staff and patients imagine them in clinical contexts, and how this influences care giving and receipt. The project has worked with these groups to better understand what is in “the mind’s eye”, and to map perceived areas of risk. This has then been compared with new data gathered in a hospital setting.”
Dr Stephanie Dancer, Consultant Microbiologist in NHS Lanarkshire, gathered data tracking which items within a ward were touched, how often and by whom. Items in the study included patient notes, bedside locker and the bed frame. Dr Dancer said: “Many of the staff we worked with had a good basic grasp of where problem areas actually exist, but there were some areas of difference, and there remains considerable scope for imaginative ways to help educate staff, patients and visitors.”
In the final part of the project, design professionals from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee and Glasgow School of Art worked together to create a number of ways to help healthcare workers visualise the threat of pathogens in clinical areas. This included video clips which can provide the user with ‘augmented reality’ on-screen information as they view an area through the screen. The aim is to go on in the future to develop a user-friendly system providing relevant information in real-time that can be updated as conditions change in the setting.
Dr John McGhee, a visual design expert from the University of Dundee, said: “This has been a very exciting project to work on which has tapped into the creative skills of our team as well as our colleagues at Glasgow School of Art to develop dynamic visualizations. The design work pulls together a lot of research data and could lead to fantastic visual aids to help towards ensuring hospital wards and other care settings are kept clean.”
The team is currently seeking further funding to build on what has been achieved. Dr Macduff added: “The project has brought together expertise from different fields, so that the knowledge of cleaners, clinicians and patients is valued alongside knowledge from a range of academics. We hope to continue working together to research in more depth and to develop creative educational interventions in this field.”
