Health and Healthcare Research
Healthcare systems across Europe continue to face the challenge of delivering accessible quality healthcare at an affordable cost. Demands on public sector budgets are growing due to such factors as ageing populations, increased prevalence of chronic disease, rising expectations of patients and rapidly changing health technologies.
RAND Europe's Healthcare team is in a unique position through appointments and collaborations to inform objective policymaking in the health field both in the UK and across Europe.
Areas of research include:
- evaluating the effectiveness of interventions to improve the quality and safety of healthcare delivery and practice,
- understanding how patients and providers respond to choices in healthcare delivery,
- quantifying public preferences and willingness to pay for improved service outcomes,
- developing an evidence base to inform R&D strategies in areas of health and biomedical research,
- informing consumer policy on lifestyle/health interventions.
Molly Morgan Jones, research leader for the Mapping Pathways project, visited Addis Ababa to present findings at the biennial International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) 2011. The conference was attended by more than 10,000 delegates from around the world, and many expressed an interest in having their countries serve as additional Mapping Pathways case-study sites. The project provided one of the few presentations on antiretroviral-based prevention.
RAND Health Director Art Kellermann was the guest speaker at the inaugural lecture of the Cambridge Centre for Health Services Research (CCHSR) in November. He spoke about the challenges of acute care in the U.S. health system. CCHSR is a joint effort of RAND Europe and the University of Cambridge Institute of Public Health, aimed at informing policy and strategy through evidence-based assessment of health services in the UK and internationally.
A survey of 172 leaders of the National Health Service (NHS) in England found that there is strong support for delivering a high quality, environmentally sustainable NHS; a firm belief that sustainability is part of delivering corporate goals; and a more general awareness of current NHS policies and practices on sustainability. However, 55% of leaders see organisational culture as a barrier to improving sustainability, with 83% of leaders agreeing that incentives and local diversity are necessary to progress more rapidly towards a sustainable NHS.
Between 15 and 20 percent of hospital emergency readmissions may be avoidable, according to research by RAND Europe and the University of Cambridge. The work, which aimed to inform the NHS Outcomes Framework, however warns that setting a rigid benchmark may be problematic. If rates are to be used for comparison, it will be important to risk-adjust for differences in case-mix between hospitals or departments.
Developed as part of the "Science of Science" programme for the UK’s Department of Health, this short paper examines the use of prizes to support the objectives of the Department’s Research and Development Directorate. It reviews the use of performance measures and incentives and concludes that prizes should play a more significant role in the UK health R&D system than they have to date. It is not suggested, though, that they should replace existing systems.
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