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Contact information


alexander.rushforth@phc.ox.ac.uk


+44 (0)1865
Fax +44 (0)1865

Alexander Rushforth

PhD

Post-doctoral researcher

Innovation, organizational change, science and technology, digital health, research impact, social theory

Through my research and teaching I try to make sense of the (non-) adoption, scale-up, spread and sustainability of (principally high-tech) research and technology-driven change programs in healthcare. Why, for instance, do highly promising initiatives to deliver 'precision medicine', 'big data', AI, and 'early testing' often struggle to become mainstream parts of healthcare? 

Together with colleagues in the IRIHS group and NIHR Oxford BRC, I am currently researching a number of ambitious attempts to scale-up 'disruptive' digital innovations in NHS service organisations and beyond. These include longitudinal action research case studies of:

- Digitisation of digital histopathology services across a regional network of NHS hospitals

- Development of a software decision support tool for streamlining cancer multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings  

- Attempts to spread and sustain electronic blood transfusion management systems at a national level

I am interested in how critical social science approaches can challenge - and improve - complex, cross-sector partnerships emerging in contemporary healthcare economies. Much of my work to date has focused on how the value of research is created and measured in contemporary healthcare economies, particularly academic medical centres, using insights from science and technology studies. 


Key publications

Recent publications

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