by Judith King (HSS Copy and Content Editor)
Inclusive change towards health, growth and thriving is the core meaning of 'development'. Knowledge management is a systematic process of gathering and packaging knowledge and connecting people to it so that they can use it effectively to improve lives.
As our funded work is informed by this mandate, it is important for the Health Systems Trust (HST) to harvest and share our implementation experiences so that we can:
- support improved service delivery,
- inform and influence policy improvement,
- build our skills in critical thinking, writing and ways of presenting the knowledge gained,
- meet our funders' requirements for reporting and documentation, and
- raise our public profile as a leading knowledge broker.
To do this, we must describe what we have done, how we have done it, why the results are useful, and whom they can benefit. Publishing and presenting this information generates evidence of effective approaches and techniques, as well as areas that require strengthening, for better service delivery in the public health sector.
Project implementers in the field who are generally not well-practised in writing for publication may be reluctant to take on the development of case studies and related abstracts that capture various aspects of promising project interventions for good practice, hence the need for internal training to build their skills in this area.
In July 2022, five selected participants from the Unfinished Business for Paediatric and Adolescent HIV in KwaZulu-Natal (UB) Project attended a two-day workshop for this purpose, with a second workshop planned for a further five participants in October.
From left: Phumzile Matolo (Clinical Advisor, eThekwini), Nondumiso Mthembu (Psychosocial Advisor, eThekwini), Sitembile Maduna (Clinical Advisor, eThekwini), Judith King (Facilitator), Nomcebo Mthembu (Clinical Advisor, Zululand), Philani Bhengu (Quality Improvement Manager), Nelisiwe Ngcobo (Clinical Advisor, uMgungundlovu), and Nandipha Jacobs (Project Manager)
Using HST's Case Study Development Tool with accompanying guidelines, the participants prepared their case study outlines prior to the workshop, and these were reviewed collectively by the group during the workshop sessions.
This process highlighted techniques for verifying, contextualising, prioritising and summarising the information. Facilitated collaboration between the writers ensured a free flow of ideas, based on the experience that team mates have valuable contributions drawn from theory and practice for understanding what the author is trying to say.
Each case study draft was edited 'on the spot' so that all of the authors could witness first-hand what was being changed, added or removed, and why. "The 'live' editing was revealing," remarked one participant. "It showed me how to build the content properly, and I now realise how important it is to re-read one's draft to avoid language errors."
Once the draft manuscripts were ready, a structured abstract – a short version of the whole paper – was developed for each one, using the same group-review method.
The final task was to ensure that the abstracts were pared down to meet the required word limit, while keeping the content coherent and complete. One participant noted that she had "most enjoyed watching the 'shaving' of the abstract text to reach the word count limit", saying that although it was a challenging task, having it demonstrated in this way had convinced her that it was achievable.
The training incorporated general academic writing principles, tips on HST style conventions for terminology, vocabulary, tone, Vancouver reference formatting, usage of plain language, and the importance of using words and terms that entrench respect for the humanity of patients and all people connected to the health system.
Dossiers of workshop materials were provided, including hand-outs on the value of writing up implementation experiences, a description of the various types of documentation outputs composed for a range of audiences, guidelines for abstract development, and authorship criteria.
In the coming months, the facilitators will check in with each author via e-mail periodically to reflect on their progress as they work independently on finalising their case study manuscripts, and to offer ongoing support.
Once all 10 authors have been trained, the aim is to finalise a portfolio of abstracts in time for submission to the 2023 PHASA Conference, and to publish a compendium of UB case studies describing promising models and lessons learnt.