Practice Development Methodology Research Articles

Utilizing practice development to implement an integrated care pathway for self‐harm

AbstractThis paper provides an overview of the development and implementation of an integrated care pathway for self‐harm across a range of health and social care organizations. The focus of the pathway and the practice development journey was to enable ownership and active collaboration in the assessment and care of people who are either considered at risk of self‐harm, or who have engaged in self‐harming behaviour. The core elements of a practice development methodology were used to plan and manage a significant piece of work aimed at securing lasting changes across a health community by working at individual, team and organizational levels. The value of utilizing a practice development strategy to provide focus for the process, and a collaborative structure for improvements in patient care are illustrated. Practice development has provided a positive and enabling structure that has allowed those involved to enhance practice and care in an area of health care that is often viewed as unpopular and unrewarding. Copyright © 2005 Whurr Publishers Ltd.

Practice development: purpose, methodology, facilitation and evaluation.

Different approaches to practice development are associated with different assumptions, and these need to be made explicit if practice development is to be transparent, rigorous and systematic in its intentions and approaches. A practice development methodology underpinned by critical social science is advocated because it focuses on achieving sustainable change through practitioner enlightenment, empowerment and emancipation and an associated culture, rather than focusing only on technical practice development. Implications of different worldviews about practice development for facilitation and outcome evaluation are highlighted. Emancipatory practice development underpinned by critical social science is argued as synonymous to emancipatory action research.

Developing Electronic Commerce Web Sites for the Visually Impaired

The visually impaired have unique demands for accessing E-commerce Web sites, and designing a site with which they can interact easily is a challenge for developers. This article presents a practical development methodology and guidelines for superior equal access multimedia electronic commerce interfaces for use on the World Wide Web.