Reducing electronic documentation burden in community care

There is rapid growth in the use of technology in healthcare, with the Government aiming for all NHS Trusts to have core digital capabilities, including electronic health records, in place by March 2025. At the same time, we are seeing healthcare increasingly move into the community with, for example, virtual wards and community diagnostic centres. The burden of electronic records on clinicians and the potential for technology to lead to new risks in clinical workflows and patient harm is gaining recognition, but this topic has yet to be explored in the community setting. In this project, you will work with partners in the West Yorkshire Integrated Care System to understand to what extent documentation burden is an issue in community settings, the factors that influence this, and how and in what contexts strategies and tools that seek to reduce documentation burden are effective in achieving this.

This PhD will involve interviewing key stakeholders working in community settings to elicit their ideas concerning how electronic records impact documentation burden and strategies used to address this, as well as observing documentation practice in real-time. It is hoped that this research will result in actionable guidance and standards for reducing documentation burden in community settings. At the beginning of the PhD, you will agree the details of the project in collaboration with key stakeholders within West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB).

Based within the Centre for Digital Innovations in Health & Social Care, you will join an active research centre and will be collaborating with researchers as part of a programme of research concerned with designing and evaluating technologies to support decision making and reduce documentation burden. You will also spend time at the Wolfson Centre for Applied Health Research, a collaboration between the Universities of Bradford and Leeds and Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, where you will get to network with researchers from the NIHR Yorkshire & Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration and the NIHR Yorkshire & Humber Applied Research Collaboration.

The studentship is for up to 4 years full time, to allow you to either spend time at the beginning of the PhD as a ‘researcher in residence’ within one or more community settings, undertaking exploratory research to further develop the research question, and/or to spend time at the end of the PhD working with West Yorkshire ICB to translate your research into practice. This PhD can also be undertaken part-time.

Eligibility:

You should hold a first degree equivalent to at least a UK upper second class honours degree, or suitable postgraduate degree in social science, human factors, psychology, or a healthcare related subject. You will be enthusiastic, organised and motivated with experience in, or knowledge of, healthcare services.

How to apply:

Formal applications should be made via the University of Bradford web site. Please register a user account and quote the name of the project on the ‘Research Proposal’ tab.