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Research profile
Integrated Care Improvement – Targeted Care from the Patient’s Perspective
The School of Health Sciences’ research profile Integrated Care Improvement has the objective that resulted in Targeted Care from the Patient’s Perspective. Integrated research means that research on care from the patient’s perspective (which also involves the perspective of significant others) is implemented in professional care within a health care system. Research that results in care improvement means that it should also result in a systematic improvement of either direct or indirect care in order to enable an increase in evidence-based professional care. The following factors are essential to achieve this objective:
- The starting point is the patient’s perspective with the aim to promote well-being and relieve suffering in relation to existential aspects of care
- Research problems are identified in cooperation with representatives for patients and significant others in cooperation with professional caregivers
- Different sources of knowledge are integrated: Firsthand experiences from patients and significant others, best practice by professional caregivers, organizational and policy experience from leading representatives of the health care sector and scientific knowledge of researchers from different disciplines
- Different scientific perspectives are integrated to supplement the basis for caring science
- Research is developed into intervention implemented and evaluated in close cooperation with patients, significant others and different professions
Caring Science
Our research has a theoretic framework of caring science with a human science approach which is focused on human needs involving the situation of the patient and his/her significant others. The theoretic framework is not related to a specific professional activity but takes its starting-point in the patient’s perspective and situation. A number of different methodological approaches are used depending on the specific research question.
Integrated Care Improvement has three main research focus.
Existential Research Questions
Integrated Care Improvement has three main research foci. The Existential research issues are at the centre of the research profile. Existential issues emerge when a person is faced with serious illness and his/her life is affected as a result of that. Research is needed to find strategies to care for patients in relation to these existential issues. Existential issues lead to research questions about organizational learning.
Care Didactic Research Questions
are dealt with within the nationally unique research milieu focused on care didactics at the University of Borås. Three central themes govern this research: The life-world, the integration of theory and best practice, and reflection. The existential research issues also raise ethical questions.
Ethical Research Questions
The Ethical research questions take as their starting-point the idea that care is based on and motivated by ethical values and norms, which can give rise to ethical conflicts when caring for a patient or trying to integrate new knowledge in the care organisation. The research around ethical questions focuses on finding strategies to deal with such ethical conflicts.