Knowledge for bright ideas – how research can support innovative health systems

Innovation is the central challenge facing health systems. The constant expansion in our ability to improve health has brought us benefits of length and quality of life that would have been unimaginable a hundred years ago. But this also creates challenges for our health systems. This lecture will explore three challenges in particular. First, what do we get? How well do our systems for generating innovations meet the health needs that we want to see addressed? Second, how do we make the best use of the innovations that we have; through understanding the value they bring, and making best use of them in practice? And third, how do we pay for this challenge - and how long will we keep being able to?

Our guest lecturer is Dr Nick Fahy, research group director for health and wellbeing at RAND Europe, where he oversees research in such areas as health systems and healthcare innovation, workplace wellbeing, and the behavioural and social determinants of health and wellbeing.

Nick Fahy joined RAND Europe from the University of Oxford, where he was a senior researcher in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences and a research fellow at Green Templeton College. As a researcher and consultant in health policy and systems, he looked at how health systems work; lessons learned by comparing health systems across countries; and how to bring about constructive change in health systems.

Alongside his Oxford role, Nick was also an expert advisor on innovation and implementation for the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, working with policymakers across Europe to support evidence-informed policy-making. This built on wide-ranging experience in international health policy, including over a decade in the European Commission, most recently as head of the health information unit.

Nick Fahy has a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in evidence-based healthcare, specifically examining psychological theory and its role in the model of diffusion of innovations in healthcare. He is also a Chartered Psychologist and continues to contribute to research and teaching at the University of Oxford and more widely.