The focus of my research
My research centres around two related problems. First of all, I am interested in how patients and professionals interact with each other in healthcare systems, and how these interactions are shaped by clinical knowledge, technique and technologies in practice. Second, I am interested in the ways that new knowledge, techniques and technologies are made workable and integrated in healthcare settings. Out of these interests has come a major programme of research that has stretched across four continents and has informed more than 150 studies worldwide.
My work is interdisciplinary: working in collaboration with clinicians and patients is centrally important to me, and has played an important part in shaping the development of my research. I have led internationally competitive research groups in four universities, and our work together has included policy and practice debates on chronic disease management (especially the management of chronic pain); the development of remote monitoring and management technologies for health delivery (including telemedicine and ehealth systems); and more recently However, in recent years my research and publication have focused more broadly on the dynamics of professional and patient behavior change and practice implementation. It has also shifted in focus from primary care to hospital care.
Over the past decade, my work has increasingly focused on theoretical development around (i) the dynamics of implementation processes (Normalization Process Theory), and (ii) the dynamics of interactions between patients and healthcare systems (Burden of Treatment Theory). This work forms a novel and fundamental contribution to the new discipline of implementation science, and to the development of process evaluation as a methodological field in healthcare. It has attracted international attention, and since its publication in 2009 more than 100 studies have used normalization process theory as their primary analytic framework.
My work is interdisciplinary: working in collaboration with clinicians and patients is centrally important to me, and has played an important part in shaping the development of my research. I have led internationally competitive research groups in four universities, and our work together has included policy and practice debates on chronic disease management (especially the management of chronic pain); the development of remote monitoring and management technologies for health delivery (including telemedicine and ehealth systems); and more recently However, in recent years my research and publication have focused more broadly on the dynamics of professional and patient behavior change and practice implementation. It has also shifted in focus from primary care to hospital care.
Over the past decade, my work has increasingly focused on theoretical development around (i) the dynamics of implementation processes (Normalization Process Theory), and (ii) the dynamics of interactions between patients and healthcare systems (Burden of Treatment Theory). This work forms a novel and fundamental contribution to the new discipline of implementation science, and to the development of process evaluation as a methodological field in healthcare. It has attracted international attention, and since its publication in 2009 more than 100 studies have used normalization process theory as their primary analytic framework.
