2015
Dr Sara Moutinho Barbosa de Melo and Professor Matthias Beck
Dr Sara Moutinho Barbosa de Melo has been chosen by the editorial team of Journal of Health Organization and Management as a Highly Commended Award winner of the 2014 Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Awards in the Health care management category. Dr Melo's thesis, which was supervised by Professor Matthias Beck at the University of York was entitled “Bottom-up safety initiatives: A case study of falls prevention at a Portuguese hospital”. Dr Melo is a lecturer in management and Professor Beck is a professor of management within Queen’s Management School.
Dr Melo’s PhD research focused on investigating how patient safety innovations start and develop within a hospital context. In order to explore this issue, Dr Melo utilised a novel sociological approach based on an extension of Actor-Network Theory. In terms of studies available in the public domain, Dr Melo’s work can be said to have pioneered the adoption of an Actor-Network Theory based framework in the context of patient safety. Alongside this innovative theoretical contribution, Dr Melo collected an extensive volume of data. Using a case study of a Falls Prevention Group at a large public Portuguese teaching hospital, Dr Melo conducted 49 in-depth interviews involving 46 clinical and non-clinical interviewees from different departments across the hospital.
The findings of Dr Melo’s PhD research are of significant importance in relation to the management of healthcare facilities as well as future policy making. Dr Melo’s research indicated that successful innovation in relation to complex issues such as patient safety initiatives are facilitated by bottom-up approaches, which in turn are fostered by informal learning networks. In recognising these issues, Dr Melo’s PhD research highlights the limitations of formal learning associated with the importation of safety practices developed externally. Given the current recognition of the need to improve patient safety, the findings of Dr Melo’s PhD research are of central importance to the development and understanding of the design and implementation of patient safety initiatives that will effectively improve patient safety.