anne Macfarlane

Anne graduated with a B.A. (psychology and sociology) from University College Cork in 1992. She then completed her MA (1995) and Ph.D (1998) in the Department of Health Promotion, NUI Galway. After working as a Research Fellow in University College London for two years (2000-2002), Anne returned to Ireland and held a Health Research Board Health Services Research Fellowship in the Department of General Practice, NUI Galway (2002-2004). Anne was appointed Lecturer in Primary Care [fixed term] at the Department of General Practice, August 2004. She was appointed Lecturer in Primary Care [permanent] in 2007. Anne is currently leading a research group - Primary Car e Us er Involvement Re search Group ( PEERS)

Research Statement

My research interests centre around:

User involvement in primary care research and service development.

I am leading a programme of research about user involvement in primary care since 2002. This has developed in partnership with the Centre for Participatory Strategies, Galway (Mary O’Reilly-de Brún and Tomas de Brún) and in collaboration with the HSE Social Inclusion Unit (Diane Nurse) and Office of Consumer Affairs (Rachel McEvoy) and is supported by my participation in an international study group about Normalisation Process Theory (led by Prof Carl May, University of Southampton).

This programme of research explores the following questions: how can users be meaningfully engaged in shaping primary care? What is the role of participatory action research in achieving user involvement?  Following engagement with users, how can desired changes to service delivery be implemented into routine practice?

Current research and development projects that explore these interests relate to intercultural health with a smaller stream of work relating to e-health.

Current work

1. Competitive Health services in rural and remote regions – A research and service development project for the implementation of eHealth services. Funded by EU Northern Peripherary Programme Project. P Silvoli, Anne MacFarlane, David Heaney, Lisbeth Anderson, Eva Waterworth. 2007-2010. 1,600,000 euro (status: on-going data collection and analysis)
        

2. An analysis of communication in cross cultural general practice consultations: service user involvement in the development of peer to peer guidelines. Funded by HRB Partnership Scheme Award with the HSE Social Inclusion Unit. Anne MacFarlane (Principal Investigator), Alice O’Flynn, Diane Nurse, Mary O’Reilly de Brún and Tomas de Brún, 2009-2011. 223,000 euro. (status: on-going data collection and analysis)

3. Towards a framework for implementation of User involvement in primary healthcare – FUSION. Funded by HRB Research Award. Anne MacFarlane (Principal Investigator) with co-applicants from Centre for Participatory Strategies, Mary O’Reilly-de Brún and HSE Office of Consumer Affairs, Rachel McEvoy and collaborators Tomas deBrún (Centre for Participatory Strategies, Galway), Ekaterina Okonkwo (Galway Migrant Service) and Prof Anne Rogers (University of Manchester), 2010-2013, €210,639 (status: literature review and project set up)

Teaching

Masters in Primary Care and Masters in Clinical Teaching

• Qualitative Research, Advanced Research Methodology module

Diploma in Primary Care

• Research Methods, Research module

Undergraduate Teaching:

• 4MB Attitude Awareness
• 4MB Breaking Bad News

Postgraduate Supervision

PhD in Primary Care

• Co-supervisor with Professor Andrew Murphy for Candidate Ruth McMenamin. Evaluating Conversation Partner Programmes – Perspectives of People with Aphasia (September 2008-present).
• Supervisor for candidate Rachel McEvoy: Analysis of user involvement strategy implementation in the Irish Context. (September 2010-present)

Selected Publications

Kennedy, P., de Brún, T., O’Reilly-de Brún, M. and MacFarlane, A. (2010) An exploration of evidence based policy in Ireland: Health and social inclusion. Evidence and Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice. 6(2) 255-268.

May, C.R., Mair, F., Finch, T., MacFarlane, A., Dowrick, C., Treweek, S., Rapley, T., Ballini, L., Ong, B.N., Rogers, A., Murray, E., Elwyn, G., Légaré, F., Gunn, J., Montori, V (2009).Building an interdisciplinary theory of implementation, embedding and integration: The Development of Normalisation Process Theory. Implementation Science 4:29.

MacFarlane, A., Singleton, C. and Green, E. (2009). Language barriers in health and social care consultations in the community: A comparative study of responses in Ireland and England.  Health Policy 92(2), 203-210.

MacFarlane, A.  Dzebisova, Z.  Karapish, D. Kovacevic, B. Ogbebor, F. Okonkwo, E.  (2009). Language barriers in Irish general practice: The perspective of refugees and asylum seeker Social Science and Medicine  69 (2), 210-214.

MacFarlane A, Glynn L, Mosinkie P, Murphy AW. (2008) Responses to language barriers in consultations with refugees and asylum seekers: A telephone survey of Irish general practitioners BioMed Central Family Practice 9:68

May C, Finch T, Mair F, Ballini L, Dowrick C, Eccles M, Gask L, MacFarlane A, Murray E, Rapley T, Rogers A, Treweek S, Wallace P, Anderson G, Burns J, Heaven B. (2007) Central understanding the implementation of complex interventions in healthcare: the normalization process model. BioMed Central, 7: 148

Future Work

I successfully co-ordinated a FP7 proposal in 2009-2010 - value of award €2.9 million. Local collaboration with Mary O’Reilly-de Brún and Tomas de Brún (both of the Centre for Participatory Strategies, Galway) with international partners Prof Catherine O’Donnell & Prof Frances Mair (University of Glasgow), Prof Chris Dowrick (University of Liverpool), Dr. Wolfgang Spiegel (Medical University of Vienna),  Prof. Maria- van den Muijsenbergh & Prof. Evelyn van Weel-Baumgarten (Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre) and Prof. Christos Lionis (University of Crete).

• The four year project focuses on the involvement of migrants and other stakeholders in implementation of guidelines and/or training initiatives to support communication in cross-cultural consultations and will start in April 2011.