Dr. Bridget Johnston
Research Assistant Professor, Public Health & Primary Care

Projects

• Title
  • Out-of-hours palliative care service provision: an evidence review
• Summary
  • This project reviews systematically both the peer-reviewed academic literature and policy documentation to collate best-available evidence on out-of-hours generalist and specialist palliative care for adults. This research contributes to an ongoing review and update of national palliative care policy in Ireland.
• Funding Agency
  • Department of Health
• Date From
  • Aug 2019
• Date To
  • May 2019

• Title
  • Understanding inequities in palliative care and providing for future need (UP)
• Summary
  • The aim of this 18 month collaborative project is to use mixed methods to model the palliative care needs of older people in Ireland; calculate associated costs (including costs to service users and effects on financial risk protection); and to provide understanding on why current knowledge regarding best practice on meeting need is not put into practice and what is required to effect change and deliver on equitable palliative care provision for older people. This work will support the work of the recent Sláintecare report in providing detailed resource and financial data to underpin Recommendation 4 that universal palliative care is provided within five years.
• Funding Agency
  • Health Service Executive
• Date From
  • Mar 2018
• Date To
  • Dec 2019

• Title
  • The International Access, Rights and Empowerment II (IARE II) Study
• Summary
  • The IARE II study is a prospective cohort study to identify and understand the service use, preferences and palliative care needs* of a cohort of older people living with frailty and advanced disease in three-countries. We will follow how the needs and preferences evolve over time, and what predicts future circumstances in three cities. This study builds on IARE I, which investigated people who had already accessed palliative care. IARE II recruits people who have not yet accessed specialist palliative care. This allows us to directly investigate potentially unmet needs, and by making comparisons between IARE I and II we can better understand the inequities of palliative care access for different groups. By following people prospectively over time we are able to evaluate how their needs, service use, and preferences evolve and can therefore understand better the appropriate models of care and timing for palliative care involvement. To provide a multi-perspective understanding of the potentially complex needs of this group, IARE II relies on a mixed methods longitudinal design including prospective data collection (patient and carer surveys, a discrete choice experiment, qualitative interviews) and retrospective data collection (bereavement follow-back survey).
• Funding Agency
  • The Atlantic Philanthropies
• Date From
  • Jun 2016
• Date To
  • Dec 2019

• Title
  • Community specialist palliative care (CSPC) provision in Ireland
• Summary
  • This prospective cohort study aims to examine three community palliative care services in North and South Dublin and in Sligo to try to understand where the differences between services lie, and to find out whether there are any advantages or disadvantages to the different kinds of services.
• Funding Agency
  • Royal College of Physicians in Ireland
• Date From
  • 2015
• Date To
  • 2018

• Title
  • International Access, Rights and Empowerment Plus (IARE+) Study
• Summary
  • This IARE Plus study used a mixed-methods design, informed by best practice guidelines, to generate information on patients' and caregivers' preferences for services and supports when living with a life-limiting illness.
• Funding Agency
  • Health Research Board
• Date From
  • 2014
• Date To
  • 2017

• Title
  • Measuring financial protection in health in Ireland
• Summary
  • project that aims to strengthen the evidence base on universal health coverage and support policy development by monitoring financial protection in Ireland using methods developed for the WHO European Region
• Funding Agency
  • World Health Organization
• Date From
  • 2015
• Date To
  • 2019

• Title
  • Pathways to Universal Health Care in Ireland
• Summary
  • Mapping the Pathways to Universal Healthcare is a research programme which aims to provide an excellent evidence base that will inform the strategic direction and implementation of universal healthcare in Ireland. From November 2016 to May 2017, the Pathways team provided technical support for the Oireachtas Committee on the Future of Healthcare. Initially, the team hosted three workshops with the Committee and then assisted the Committee with its remit 'to devise cross-party agreement on a single long-term vision for health care and direction of health policy in Ireland'. This report from the Committee, The Sláintecare Report, was published in May 2017.
• Funding Agency
  • Health Research Board
• Date From
  • 2014
• Date To
  • 2018

• Title
  • The International Access, Rights and Empowerment (IARE I) Study
• Summary
  • Overall research aim The aim of the IARE study is to improve the rights of older adult palliative care patients and their carers by generating information regarding access (availability, accessibility, affordability, adequacy and acceptability) and empowerment of people requiring specialist palliative care in order to help secure equitable access to healthcare for this population. Summary of design A mixed methods design comprising three work packages. Work package one is a cross-sectional study to identify the profile of older adult patients who access palliative care services in four tertiary hospitals in three cities (the city hospitals) allowing for identification case-mix complexity; the characteristics and preferences of older adults who access palliative care and factors associated with access; their preferences for involvement in decision-making and associated factors; and the development of a measurement tool for the health economic evaluation of palliative care interventions. Work package two is a qualitative study to establish empowerment as understood by older adults who access specialist palliative care (i.e., the conceptual development of the construct of empowerment), the barriers and facilitators experienced and encountered. Work package three is a carer study to establish accessibility, availability, affordability and acceptability of palliative care services through the use of an adapted version of a postal follow-back survey (QUALYCARE survey) supplemented with additional items to examine carers' financial hardship, demographics, care satisfaction, burden, and preferences.
• Funding Agency
  • The Atlantic Philanthropies
• Date From
  • 2012
• Date To
  • 2014

• Title
  • Cost-effectiveness of palliative care services in Ireland
• Summary
  • This project examines evidence on the cost and cost effectiveness of alternative models of specialist palliative care (SPC) (e.g., variations in the mix of specialist palliative in-patient, day and home care) in Ireland.
• Funding Agency
  • The Atlantic Philanthropies
• Date From
  • 2012
• Date To
  • 2015

• Title
  • Developing a predictive model for the treatment of edentulous patients in Ireland
• Summary
  • We aim to use patient-based data to develop a standardised clinical diagnostic tool that will predict the most appropriate treatment for an edentulous individual. The objectives of this project are first, to identify the key needs of edentulous people using qualitative methodology, purposive sampling and semi-structured interviews ; these needs will be used to produce a condition-specific subjective health status measure, mapped to a taxonomy for quality of life. Second, we will investigate edentulous individuals before and after conventional, then complex treatment to find the baseline characteristics of patients who achieve success with the different treatments. Third, we will measure the health gain and cost of conventional and complex treatments. This information will form the basis for more equal access to care and efficient use of health resources at primary and multidisciplinary care levels.
• Funding Agency
  • Health Research Board
• Date From
  • 2012
• Date To
  • 2014

• Title
  • Efficiency Review of the BreastCheck Screening Programme
• Summary
  • The Efficiency Review of the BreastCheck Screening Programme was commissioned by the Department of Health in order to prepare for the age extension of BreastCheck to women up to the age of 69 years, as provided for in the Programme for Government.
• Funding Agency
  • Department of Health
• Date From
  • Aug 2012
• Date To
  • Nov 2012