More Research Needed bulletin
A case study about the creation of a monthly ‘More Research Needed’ bulletin.
Who wrote this case study?
Laura Sims [email protected] from Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (2016).
Who asked?
Clinical Research Centre, Blackpool Teaching Hospital and Lancaster Health Hub.
What did they say?
Is there a way to inspire people to undertake or become involved in research projects?
The Clinical Research Centre at Blackpool is a very pro-active department and works closely with the library. Over the past few years they have been working to improve research awareness and increase uptake of clinical trials at the Trust and were looking for ways to inspire staff to pursue research projects. Their partnership with the Lancaster Health Hub led to a request to the library for a newsletter to encourage more clinicians to become involved in clinical research.
What did you do?
We created a monthly bulletin called ‘More Research Needed’ which (through a literature search alert) gathers abstracts from any recent studies – primarily systematic reviews – which were inconclusive and therefore require further research to be undertaken. The bulletin is distributed to all members of the Trust’s Research and Development Committee, many of whom are active researchers, and is also circulated widely across the organisation to inspire interest in clinical research.
It explains how important research is, where there are currently gaps in the evidence and how to request a literature search as the first step to planning a research project. It also includes the contact details of our R&D team – and they, in turn, refer people to us for literature searches when staff initially approach them about research projects. So this is a very effective way of collaborating with the R&D department to encourage involvement in research and putting evidence into practice.
How did it help?
The bulletin has been well received by those people involved in research both as inspiration for future research and for interest in staying up to date with what other people are looking into. The Director of Clinical Research at our local University said “The Newsletter is distributed across our Faculty of Health and Social Care and is a valuable way of remaining up to date with the latest from Cochrane in an accessible format”
We have a number of consultants who are involved in research in areas such as cardiology, orthopaedics, medical education, gastroenterology and respiratory medicine. They, in turn, support their junior teams to get involved in research and use the bulletin to encourage them to approach the library for a literature search as a first step. An example of this was one of our junior doctors’ research into ultrasound guided cannulation by junior doctors, for which he won a quality award within the Trust after an in-depth literature review had indicated the lack of evidence in this area.
View a copy of the bulletin: More research needed issue 59 July 2016
July 2016