Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Education Centre, Charing Cross Hospital, Fulham Palace Road, London, W6 8RF, UK.
Department of Surgery and Cancer, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2021 Apr 29;21(1):400. doi: 10.1186/s12913-021-06354-y.
There are increasing opportunities for healthcare professionals outside medicine to be involved in and lead clinical research. However, there are few roles within these professions that include time for research. In order to develop such roles, and evaluate effective use of this time, the range of impacts of this clinical academic activity need to be valued and understood by healthcare leaders and managers. To date, these impacts have not been comprehensively explored, but are suggested to extend beyond traditional quantitative impact metrics, such as publications, citations and funding awards.
Ten databases, four grey literature repositories and a naïve web search engine were systematically searched for articles reporting impacts of clinical academic activity by healthcare professionals outside medicine. Specifically, this did not include the direct impacts of the research findings, rather the impacts of the research activity. All stages of the review were performed by a minimum of two reviewers and reported impacts were categorised qualitatively according to a modified VICTOR (making Visible the ImpaCT Of Research) framework.
Of the initial 2704 identified articles, 20 were eligible for inclusion. Identified impacts were mapped to seven themes: impacts for patients; impacts for the service provision and workforce; impacts to research profile, culture and capacity; economic impacts; impacts on staff recruitment and retention; impacts to knowledge exchange; and impacts to the clinical academic.
Several overlapping sub-themes were identified across the main themes. These included the challenges and benefits of balancing clinical and academic roles, the creation and implementation of new evidence, and the development of collaborations and networks. These may be key areas for organisations to explore when looking to support and increase academic activity among healthcare professionals outside medicine. The modified VICTOR tool is a useful starting point for individuals and organisations to record the impact of their research activity. Further work is needed to explore standardised methods of capturing research impact that address the full range of impacts identified in this systematic review and are specific to the context of clinical academics outside medicine.
越来越多的医学以外的医疗保健专业人员有机会参与并领导临床研究。然而，这些专业领域很少有包含研究时间的角色。为了开发这些角色，并评估有效利用这些时间，医疗保健领导者和管理者需要重视和理解这种临床学术活动的各种影响。迄今为止，这些影响尚未得到全面探讨，但据推测，除了出版物、引用和资助奖项等传统的定量影响指标之外，还会延伸到其他方面。
系统地检索了 10 个数据库、4 个灰色文献存储库和一个简单的网络搜索引擎，以查找报告医学以外的医疗保健专业人员临床学术活动影响的文章。具体来说，这不包括研究结果的直接影响，而是研究活动的影响。审查的所有阶段都由至少两名评审员进行，并根据修改后的 VICTOR（Research Impact 的可见性）框架对报告的影响进行定性分类。
最初确定的 2704 篇文章中，有 20 篇符合纳入标准。确定的影响被映射到七个主题：对患者的影响；对服务提供和劳动力的影响；对研究概况、文化和能力的影响；经济影响；对员工招聘和留用的影响；对知识交流的影响；以及对临床学术的影响。
在主要主题中确定了几个重叠的子主题。其中包括平衡临床和学术角色的挑战和好处、创造和实施新证据，以及发展合作和网络。这些可能是组织在寻求支持和增加医学以外的医疗保健专业人员学术活动时需要探索的关键领域。修改后的 VICTOR 工具是个人和组织记录其研究活动影响的有用起点。还需要进一步研究，以探索捕获研究影响的标准化方法，这些方法既可以涵盖本系统评价中确定的所有影响，也可以针对医学以外的临床学者的具体情况。
