“I had never actively considered applying for a PhD before, however after attending a strategic meeting hosted by NHS Lanarkshire and the University of Strathclyde, I began to realise the benefits of a PhD, not only for myself professionally but also for the patients I care for,” says Michael Smith.
Michael, who is a Highly Specialist Clinical Pharmacist & Pharmacy Team Lead Gastroenterology and IBD at Hairmyres Hospital, is one of three NHS Lanarkshire staff undertaking a PhD at Strathclyde.
He is joined by Francois Taljard, Consultant Anaesthetist University Hospital Monklands, and Donald Wilson, Director of Information and Digital Technology.
The NHS Lanarkshire trio are part of a 15-strong group undertaking the PhD studentships which are focused on the theme of ‘The Future Hospital and Beyond its Walls’, led by the Health and Care Futures initiative at Strathclyde.
These PhD studentships were made possible thanks to a generous donation from Strathclyde Alumnus Leslie Stretch, former President & CEO at Medallia Inc. and CallidusCloud. Through his philanthropic support of postgraduate research at Strathclyde, Leslie founded the University’s Health and Care Sector PhD Fund, for the benefit of the healthcare profession and its patients.
Through Health and Care Futures, Strathclyde aims to use state-of-the-art innovation and expertise in the fields of medicines innovation, health technologies, data analytics and artificial intelligence, and the workforce and leadership to make an effective and sustained contribution to the future of health and care in the UK and beyond.
Michael says: “The ‘Future Hospital’ will be a network that is agile, flexible, and responsive, connected by a digital infrastructure and providing data-driven-care; supporting people to be cared for in their communities with at risk populations monitored remotely and empowered to engage and be active participants in their own health and care.
“In order to deliver this future model of care, my PhD research is focusing on a co-design, development and feasibility study of a novel inflammatory bowel disease remote monitoring digital technology in patients treated with monoclonal antibody biologics in NHS Lanarkshire. Utilising technology in this way, will allow us to care for patients with IBD remotely, away from hospital and in their own homes.”
For Donald, whose PhD topic is exploring effective digital transformation practices, the opportunity came at the right time: “With the building a new hospital to replace Monklands, I felt it was a great opportunity to ensure we are at the leading edge of digital technologies as we redesign a large hospital, and so this research topic allows me to explore these areas and bring it back into the workplace.
“My PhD is based on exploring how digital strategies are developed and delivered within complex healthcare settings. This offers a great opportunity to influence the future development and delivery of digital strategies as healthcare innovation has a critical dependency on digital technologies and the ability to capture and manage real-time data.”
Data is central to Francois’s PhD too. He says: “A lot of the data we gather in health care actually just goes to waste and doesn’t help us to learn from things and provide better care.
“My PhD is titled ‘Unlocking Information in Underutilised Healthcare Related Datasets Through Innovative Artificial Intelligence’ and so the idea is that we can try and use some of this data, analyse it, and with new modern machine learning techniques, potentially predict those people who are at high risk of poor outcomes or predict those who are going to do really well.
“I think there’s lots and lots of things that we can learn from other fields and from other people, and I think people should do the learning and bring that in so that we can modernise medicine and provide a much better service and experience for everyone.”
Francois agrees: “I would say it’s a great opportunity to further develop yourself and to ensure that we develop our services based upon a lot of knowledge and evidence that’s available through academia. So it’s very much part of our focus on triple helix and linking with industry and linking with academia and building the best possible services for the people in Lanarkshire.”
The University offers a wide range of health and care related programmes and continuing professional development opportunities. More information can be found on the University’s Health and Care Futures webpages.
