EQUIPS will bring together stakeholder groups, researchers and knowledge users to advance Quality and Patient Safety (QPS) research and create a better understanding among patients and the public about the value and impact of QPS research.
The multidisciplinary Network will be led by Professor Samuel Cromie, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), with Dr Orla Healy, National Clinical Director of Quality and Patient Safety, Health Service Executive (HSE) as the Lead Knowledge User on the award.
EQUIPS will have three strands.
- The Enable strand will put all the pieces in place to build a thriving research community – events, information sources, capacity and capability building.
- The Understanding and Informing strand will draw on this community, set priorities and strategies for QPS research, identify barriers and enablers and evaluate the network itself to apply the quality improvement cycle to it.
- The Focussing strand will consist of clusters to start working on priority QPS research topics, set the agenda for them, put consortia together and start pursuing funding. Two initial clusters will focus on System and Process Design and Implementation and Evaluation.
The network incorporates researchers and research groups/centres from seven Universities in disciplines that include Quality Improvement, Patient Safety Science, Implementation Science, Health Psychology, Human Factors, Health Economics, Safety Culture, Systems Science and Public Health.
The project will run from now until November 2028.