The Five Goals of the MPS Foundation

We support research that makes a meaningful contribution to our world by focusing on research that:

  • focuses on those human factors and organisational design that can improve patient care, safety and outcomes, and wellbeing of healthcare professionals
  • helps to reduce risk for patients and MPS members
  • improves the wellbeing for MPS members and medical and dental professionals
  • informs and develops expertise in risk reduction and management
  • clarifies ‘what works’ and how this can be translated into workplaces in different environments and countries

WHAT WE FUND

The MPS Foundation’s funding focuses on five strategic priorities:

the impact of human factors

We are interested in researching the impact people and groups have on patient care, safety, outcomes and risk, including but not exclusively: 

  • Communication:
    • Communication between patient and healthcare professionals
      • causes of communication breakdown
      • patient involement in decision making
      • how to manage pateints' expectation
      • improving patient voice in delivering healthcare
  • The impact of the media (both positive and negative) and the public perception of healthcare professionals
  • Consent:
    • the use of third parties in obtaining consent
    • obtaining consent in a remote working environment
  • The impact of culture
  • Generational differences in response to risk and its impact on patient safety, culture and attitudes to risk

the impact of processes and delivery models

We welcome research into the effects of process and compliance on delivering healthcare, including:

  • the effective use of clinical registries
  • the impact of incentivisation on healthcare professionals and patient care, outcomes and risk
  • the impact of new roles, responsibilities and functions within healthcare and the implications for quality assurance and risk management
  • the impact of individual mobility, effective risk management and quality assurance of healthcare professionals who transfer from one healthcare system to another
  • private hospital governance
  • building system resilience

Wellbeing of healthcare professionals and team

The personal and professional wellbeing and development of healthcare professionals and teams remains our priority. For this reason, we’re interested in research that recognises and addresses the following:

  • burnout, resilience and self-awareness
  • the need for clinicians to consider their own mental and physical health and performance in delivering the very best for their patients.

digital integration and technology

Digital and technological developments continue to help clinicians maximise opportunities and minimise risks. We are particularly interested in research into:

  • the use of Artificial Intelligence as a diagnostic tool, including research associated with accuracy and risk management
  • the impact of telemedicine and social media, and the risks they present to healthcare professionals and patients
  • the impact of telemedicine and social media on clinician wellbeing.

Effectiveness Of Teaching And Learning Innovations

Effective teaching and learning innovations are central to risk prevention, improving patient safety and patient outcomes. Education, training and learning are vitally important to healthcare professionals throughout their career and help professionals to improve patient safety and outcomes as well as reducing risk. We are particularly interested in research into:

  • How to make CPD impactive and effective
  • Creating a learning organisation in a regulated environment
  • Effective transfer of knowledge and skills to the workplace to increase patient safety, reduce risk and enhance wellbeing
  • How to encourage the sharing of learning from near misses
  • How to create learning opportunities that enables new and experienced professionals to manage errors in a reflective way that facilitates learning
Teaching

We welcome proposals that are innovative, original, evidence-based, and focused on applied research. We favour projects that focus on private hospital, outpatient practice, and dentistry environments and will give priority to proposals that involve and impact more than one country or region.