The Centre for Healthcare Innovation Research
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Healthcare Innovation

Research

CHIR produces research which supports practitioners, policy-makers, and other stakeholders facing the complex challenges of embedding healthcare innovations; that is, implementing innovations sustainably and at scale.

Our research aims to develop the evidence base for improving the sustainable implementation and spread of healthcare innovations by identifying generalisable aspects and mechanisms of the way such innovations are adopted, adapted and embedded across different contexts. Our work connects the introduction of innovations to the shifting work patterns and organizational changes required to scale and sustain them in practice.

By drawing on the expertise of two highly ranked Schools at City, University of London - Bayes Business School and the School of and Psychological Health Sciences – the Centre provides the interdisciplinary approach needed to analyse, evaluate and improve this dynamic process of embedding innovation. We are working across a range of academic fields such as health sciences, organisational studies, implementation research and social sciences and deploy of a range of methodological tools, including both the tracking of innovation journeys over time, and cross-sectional comparison of innovations.

Diagram showing the integration of Health Sciences, Implementation research, Organisational studies and Social Sciences to form Health Innovation Research.

Our work involves multiple projects which reflect the major themes of our approach as being;

  • Evidence-based and interdisciplinary;
  • Understanding the processes of implementing and spreading innovations;
  • Encompassing different types of innovation across multiple levels of healthcare systems;
  • Addressing different external and organizational contexts for innovation spread and implementation;
  • Assessing patient and public involvement in embedding innovations.

Research Vision

Scaling innovations for societal impact

Health innovations are vital for improving health and wellbeing, but far too often good innovations don’t reach people and places fast enough.

We believe that a change in thinking is needed, focusing not only on the innovations, but also on how they scale and spread for maximum impact and value for money.

Our centre aims to provide robust and reliable evidence to support this shift to ensure innovations bring transformations in health and care for all.

People are at the heart of our research and our innovative Lab approach connects researchers, innovators, adopters, policymakers and the public around the most pressing issues facing health around the world.

To help to foster growth and development in key challenges within health innovation, we are currently developing a range of interdisciplinary research labs that provide focal points and energy for team development and impact.

The Innovation Journey

Led by Prof. Harry Scarbrough, this work address the challenges of scaling innovations across healthcare systems and focusses on the mechanisms (evidence generation, learning, social networks, patient and clinician engagement) which connect early phase development to later phase implementation.

Innovation Translation

Led by Dr. Charitini Stavropoulou, this work focuses on the interplay between adapting innovation attributes and  changing roles and practices which supports the sustainability of innovations in particular local contexts.

Arts and Health

Led by Dr Katie Rose Sanfilippo, this lab investigates the role of the arts in supporting health and wellbeing for marginalized communities in the UK and around the world. This group focuses on developing evidence-based practice in arts in health as well as conducting research to understand and overcome the complexities in sustainability scaling and spreading arts-based interventions in community, health and social care settings.

Inclusion Health

Led by Dr Anita Mehay and Dr Sabrina Germain, this work focuses on the development and spread of innovations which reach groups who are socially excluded and typically experience multiple and overlapping risk factors for poor health, such as poverty, violence and complex trauma.

Economic Evaluation and Mathematical Modelling

Led by Dr Kyriaki Giorgakoudi, the lab aims to understand disease, its health and economic impact and the implications of innovations to tackle it. The lab's work is interdisciplinary spanning a diverse array of fields, including clinical trials, cancer, infectious disease epidemiology, one health, food policy, mental health and science communication.

The Innovation Journey

Mobilizing pilot-based evidence for the spread and sustainability of innovations in healthcare: The role of innovation intermediaries (Ongoing)

  • Key Contact: Prof Harry Scarbrough
  • Funded by: AHSN Network and the NHS England Innovation, Research and Life Sciences team

Strategies for spreading and scaling perinatal mental health interventions in low and middle-income countries (Ongoing)

  • Key Contact: Dr Katie Rose Sanfilippo
  • Collaborators: USAID Momentum; Perinatal Mental Health Project, University of Cape Town South Africa
  • Funded by: City, University of London Policy Support Fund

Role of patient and public involvement in different stages of healthcare innovation – A scoping review (Completed 2022)

  • Key contact: Dr Charitini Stavropoulou
  • Collaborators: Centre for Maternal and Child Health, City University of London
  • https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35174585/

Professionals' responses to the introduction of AI innovations in healthcare (Completed August 2021)

  • Key contact: Prof Harry Scarbrough
  • https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-021-06861-y

Review of spread and adoption approaches across the AHSN Network (Completed May 2021)

  • Key Contact: Dr Alex Ziemann
  • Collaborators: Wessex AHSN and South West AHSN and is co-funded by the AHSN Network and the NHS England Accelerated Access Collaborative.

Innovation Translation

Translating Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (Ongoing)

  • Key contact: Prof Harry Scarbrough
  • Collaborators: UCLPartners
  • Funded by: SBRI, UKRI

Reframing innovation moves if change agents in pluralistic organizational contexts (Ongoing)

  • Key contact: Zuhur Balayah
  • Collaborators: Bayes Business School
  • Funded by: ARC North Thames

Centring public perceptions on translating AI into clinical practice (Completed 2023)

  • Key contact: Dr Charitini Stavropoulou
  • Collaborators: ARC North Thames

Evaluation of the UCLPartners Proactive Care Programme (Completed January 2022)

  • Key contact: Alex Ziemann
  • Collaborators: UCLPartners
  • Funded by: UCLPartners

Arts and Health

Adapting a Community Health Intervention through Musical Engagement (CHIME) to support the perinatal mental health of global majority women in Lewisham, London (Ongoing)

  • Key Contact: Dr Katie Rose Sanfilippo
  • Collaborators: Yaram Arts (Project Lead); Goldsmiths, University of London, Maternity Voices Partnership Lewisham
  • Funded by: The Barring Foundation
  • Website: Chime Project

Investigating the potential of a community-based music intervention to support maternal mental health in South India: A scoping study (Ongoing)

  • Key contact: Dr Katie Rose Sanfilippo
  • Collaborators: National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences, Bengaluru, India
  • Funded by: City, University of London Pump Priming Fund
  • Website: Chime Project

Identifying pathways for implementing and scaling up musical care during the beginning of life in the UK (Ongoing)

  • Key contact: Dr Katie Rose Sanfilippo
  • Collaborators: Royal College of Music/Imperial College London Centre for Performance Science (Project lead); University of South Wales; Happity
  • Funded by: British Academy/Leverhulme Trust; Royal College of Music Policy Support Fund; Royal College of Music Knowledge Exchange Fund

Building a Well Communities Research Consortium to address health disparities through Integrated Care Systems (Completed July 2023)

  • Key Contact: Prof Angela Harden
  • Collaborators: Integrated Care Northamptonshire; North East London Integrated Care System; Office for Health Improvement & Disparities; Royal College of Music; Tower Hamlets Council for Voluntary Service; University College London; University of Northampton; Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire; West Northamptonshire Council; North Northamptonshire Council; Tower Hamlets Council; Greater London Authority; Barts Health NHS Trust
  • Funded by: Arts and Humanities Research Council

Musical Care International Network (Ongoing)

  • Key Contact: Dr Katie Rose Sanfilippo
  • Collaborators: Royal College of Music/Imperial College London Centre for Performance Science (Network Co-lead)
  • Funded by: Royal College of Music Knowledge Exchange Fund

Music and Parental Wellbeing Research Network (Ongoing)

  • Key Contact: Dr Katie Rose Sanfilippo
  • Collaborators: Royal College of Music/Imperial College London Centre for Performance Science (Network Co-lead)
  • Funded by: Arts and Humanities Research Council

Inclusion Health

Scoping reviews on the spread and scale of key innovations to tackle health inequalities (Ongoing)

  • Key contact: Dr Anita Mehay
  • Funded by: UCLPartners.

Fathers Together:  A study to explore how to better support young fathers in prison and their families (Ongoing)

  • Key contact: Dr Anita Mehay
  • Collaborators: Central and North West London NHS Trust; University College London; University of Hertfordshire; Race Equality Foundation
  • Funded by: National Institute for Health and care Research (NIHR)

Supportive Families, Safer Lives: adapting a family intervention to reduce youth involvement in violence and crime (Ongoing)

  • Key contact: Dr Anita Mehay
  • Collaborators: University College London; Race Equality Foundation
  • Funded by: Youth Endowment Fund

Development and evaluation of a hybrid group programme to reduce the intensity and frequency of children’s exposure to parental conflict (Ongoing)

  • Key contact: Dr Anita Mehay
  • Collaborators: Race Equality Foundation
  • Funded by: The UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)