Project methods

The project was divided into four main phases.

Phase 1: Literature review. This part of the project focused on identifying the processes which might be involved in sharing practice-based knowledge. The literature review was used to guide the research part of the project by providing some ideas about what to pay attention to when observing how people share knowledge.

Phase 2: Facilitating knowledge sharing. This part of the project involved the Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellow working directly with integrated health and social care teams to help them share knowledge in order to work out how best to support the people they are looking after. This involved:

  1.  Watching how team members are interacting and the kinds of issues they are dealing with
  2. Developing questions to help team members share knowledge about those issues
  3. Attending case management meetings to help team members share knowledge about those issues

Phase 3: Collecting data about knowledge sharing. This part of the project involved the Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellow and lay project researchers (local people who have been trained to collect qualitative data) observing and describing how integrated health and social care team members share knowledge. Data included:

  1. Observational field notes made by the Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellow and lay project researchers
  2. Recordings of discussions between the Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellow and lay project researchers
  3. Focus groups with integrated team members

Data were combined and used to produce descriptive ‘case stories’ which describe how the team share knowledge to address the service delivery issues they are facing

Phase 4: Producing a knowledge sharing framework. This part of the project involved analysing the case stories and using them to produce a useful framework for sharing practice-based knowledge. This involved holding analysis workshops to identify the key processes involved in sharing practice-based knowledge and converting these into a series of questions which integrated teams can use to help them share knowledge.

Please visit the results and resources page to view and download the knowledge sharing case stories and tools to encourage knowledge sharing.

 

 

 

This project was undertaken as part of a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellowship (reference KMRF-2013-02-07). Grant value: £198,630. Project period: June 2014-May 2017

This website presents independent research funded by NIHR. The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.

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