Tag Archives: Research

Measuring the impact of research: an ongoing challenge

2 jul.

MaiteSolansMaite Solans, ISOR Group

Society has high expectations from research and wishes to know what are its benefits: social, decision-making, health, economic, etc., and in order to respond to these expectations, it’s important to assess its impact. An important aspect to consider when we want to evaluate the impact of research would be to choose our starting point: a project or an impact?

Let’s consider the first option. Our starting point is a research project. Now we want to find out whether it has led to a specific health benefit. In most cases, this cannot be found out immediately, on the contrary, we’ll have to spend enough time waiting for the effects to take place. As time passes, we then find that this project will contribute in some way or another to a greater number of impacts and also that other research projects have their own impact. If our starting point is a specific impact, the opposite will occur: that is, it will be difficult to connect an impact with a specific project and as time passes, many other research projects will have contributed to our specific impact. Continue reading →

Catalonia shows its potential teamwork with the REVASCAT clinical trial in mechanical thrombectomy in grave ischemic stroke

21 maig

Sònia AbilleiraSònia Abilleira Castells, neurologist. Plan for Cerebral Vascular Disease

A clinical trial conducted entirely in Catalonia with the participation of four tertiary stroke hospitals and the support of the master plan for cerebral vascular disease, showed that treatment with catheters in the acute phases of severe ischemic stroke is crucial for good clinical outcomes.

Ischemic stroke causes around 8,500 annual hospitalizations in Catalonia. An estimated 70% of patients are either dead or are in a situation of dependency within 5-years of the stroke. Until now, the only treatment available to us was a drug administered intravenously in the first 4.5 hours of the stroke achieving lysis or a rupture of the thrombus which for a percentage of the patients increased the likelihood of survival without significant neurological sequels. This treatment, known as intravenous thrombolysis has a very low efficiency when the thrombus is located on a main artery of the brain which happens in 25% of cases, translating clinically into more severe strokes. Continue reading →

Research and health policy: “to blog or not to blog”

7 maig

Tino MartíTino Martí, Health economist

That is the question. The strength of the link between research and health policy looks different depending on the perspective. Health service researchers expect that their work has more impact in politicians’ decisions while the politicians expect to be informed about the most effective way to ease the configuration of health policies based on scientific evidence. This is a difficult transition bridge whose surface is eminently communicative.

The “Web first” section of the influential Health Affairs, this month features a paper on the use of social media and the researchers’ perceptions and it’s worth reviewing (Grande D et al, 2014). During the Academy Health Annual Research Meeting, 215 researchers were interviewed using a mix of techniques (cases, assessment of broadcasting’ effectiveness and open qualitative questions). In the cases’ section, three ways of communicating research results to policy makers were presented: traditional media, social media and direct contact with decision makers: The social media includes the blogosphere and different social networks, particularly Twitter. Continue reading →

Towards a characterisation of the social impact of biomedical research centres in Catalonia: are we going in the right direction?

9 abr.

Paula AdamPaula Adam, Head of Research Assessment AQuAS

While growing, the overall number of agents who are interested in evaluating the impact of research conducted in the R & D organizations meet a common concern: The need to define a set of indicators of results or impacts that are comparable and internationally accepted. In 2009 a Canadian panel of experts carried out one of the proposals with a global scope, using a set of indicators accompanied by a theoretical model and an appeal to the global community in helping advance the improvement and refinement. Since then, others have reported similar interests. However, we’re not yet aware of any successful wide-ranging initiatives. In literature the points of view favouring a mixed vision of quantitative metric indicators combined with qualitative approaches prevails. Continue reading →

The lessons we learned from Cy Frank

26 març

Cy FrankCyril Frank, or Cy, as he liked to be called, was a visionary with a transforming vocation who accomplished a lot for the wellbeing and health of the residents in Alberta and Canada. Surgeon by profession, he was always interested by the challenges about the quality of services and health systems, very similar to those of AQuAS. He was a leader in his home country and he will be always remembered by people in Alberta and Canada, as demonstrated by the long list of messages, memories, thoughts, stories and notes of condolence that are published every day on the University of Calgary’s notice board. Where he was a professor. Stresses the obituary that the journalist André Picard wrote in The Globe and Mail explaining the variety of ‘hats’ that led Cy Frank over his life. Continue reading →