Download Following Techniques

Following Techniques
Ethnographic explorations of the
translation process in health research
Dr Shirlene Badger and Dr Richard Milne
CIPH/PHGF
We know little about how
particular technologies
emerge or are identified as
appropriate for clinical
implementation or how
people work together to make
implementation happen.
BACKGROUND
Similarly, we have scant
understanding of the
environment, practices and
conditions by which
implementation of novel
techniques are enabled or
blocked.
The Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC)
• Established in 2007 by the NIHR
• “outstanding NHS and University partnerships in the
country”
• Remit is to lead the way in translating basic science as
early adoptors of new insights in techniques for
improving health
• In 2012, the SAB heralded the Cambridge BRC as a
national example for its achievements in translational
research
BACKGROUND
- To map the historical, geographical and scientific
spaces that have allowed for the particular
conceptualisation of implementation across biomedical
case studies.
- To explore how particular practices are constituted
across different research contexts and are brought
together in order to create and support the possibility of
translational research and implementation.
- To unravel the boundaries of the translational research
enterprise and translational tensions.
- To explore the common and unique social and ethical
issues within the process of translation.
OBJECTIVES
Component One: examine the historical possibilities
that have allowed for the conceptual application of a
technique in a particular context
Component Two: Detailed observational work.
“Ethnographies have a key role in creating a more
efficient, more effective, more equitable and more
humane health care system, particularly in illuminating
the organizational and interactional processes through
which health care is delivered” (Murphy and Dingwall,
2007).
Our focus here is on ‘technique watching’ and the
mapping tools of Situational Analysis.
Component Three: Interview studies to support the
prior two components.
METHODOLOGICAL
COMPONENTS
Ethnographic case studies:
• whole genome sequencing for the real time
identification of infectious disease and
mapping of outbreaks;
• exome sequencing for stream-lining the
process of diagnosis of rare diseases for which
the gene is known;
• development of cell therapies for
neurodegenerative diseases;
• the translational work of platform development
and infrastructure and the ‘re-purposing’ of
dementia research participation.
WHAT ARE WE DOING?