Knowledge capture tools

A case study about the creation of a template to capture innovative practice at Public Health England.

Who wrote this case study?

Caroline De Brún from Public Health England (2016).

Who asked?

Public Health England Quality and Governance Team

What did they say?

They wanted us to capture experience from their Effective Practice event, in February 2016. The aim of the event was to share and capture examples of good practice within PHE Centres around England. Eight presentations took place via 3 workshops.

What did you do?

The PHE Knowledge and Library Service (KLS) was asked to develop a template for note-takers to capture the key points and lessons learned from each presentation, and appoint some note-takers for the event, in addition to the knowledge capture template.

The KLS team were also asked to develop a template for capturing PHE innovative practice. This template will be completed by each of the presenters, from this and future events, and will be stored on the PHE Knowledge Platform and the Quality and Governance Portal, so that PHE employees and stakeholders can refer to them, and learn from good practice.

The Knowledge capture template was created and can be seen in Appendix 1. On the day of the event, KLS provided two Knowledge and Evidence Specialists to fill in the template. A third note-taker was also recruited, to ensure that all 3 workshops would be recorded.

The note-takers attended all the workshops, which meant that three accounts were recorded, and the note-takers were able to experience all the presentations. After the event, one of the KLS note-takers, collated the notes into one document, and this was circulated to all the presenters to make sure that they were satisfied with what had been recorded, and then it was sent to all the event participants.

The template for capturing PHE innovative practice, Appendix 2, was informed by existing templates from a range of related organisations, including National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), NHS Health Check, NHS Improving Quality, Health Education England Library & Knowledge (LQAF) England, and NHS Scotland.

How did it help?

The KLS version of the template has been reviewed within the KLS team and the Community of Improvers team, and will be tested by the workshop presenters to ensure that it is fit for purpose. The template was circulated to the presenters so that they could write-up their experiences in a consistent manner.

The completed examples will then be hosted on the Knowledge Management Platform and the Quality and Governance Portal for all to see and learn from. Following feedback, and where appropriate, the template will amended for future use.

May 2016