Assessing Technology Platforms for Global Health Engagement to Support Integration of Efforts Across Geographic Combatant Commands

Global health engagement (GHE) is an integral part of the cooperation efforts of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the geographic combatant commands (GCCs) with partner nations and provides support in training and preparing their military and civilian health systems. These activities encompass a wide spectrum of engagements-military-to-military, military-to-civilian, and multilateral-and support joint missions of humanitarian aid and disaster response, deterrence, access and presence, counterterrorism, and homeland defense. Global health engagements and activities require extensive planning, funding, and resource allocation within the GCCs and component commands. For a continuously growing breadth of GHE and the need to support joint exercises with partner military and civilian medical professionals for partner capacity-building, GHE also requires a robust information technology infrastructure. In this study, the authors assess the technology and process requirements to support the life cycle of GHE activities and assessments-from planning to evaluation-and the information- and knowledge-sharing needs of the GHE community. To do so, they conducted a literature review related to GHE activities, funding sources, and stakeholders; the evolution of technology solutions to support GHE; systems in use by GHE practitioners; and technology solutions in the market, focusing particularly on cloud infrastructure and services and cloud service providers. They held discussions with GHE subject-matter experts to document and analyze GHE technology platform requirements. And they assessed the available and planned platforms according to their features, enhancements, support and maintenance, data integration, interoperability, and future road maps.

Bibliometric Analysis of Mental Health Research: 1980--2008

This article presents the findings of a bibliometric study of mental health research papers published from 1980 to 2008. The aim of this study was to map mental health research in the G20 and other leading countries in order to analyse i) the research productivity of nations; ii) the relative intensity of research; iii) the level of research (clinical or basic); iv) levels of scientific impact; and v) levels of collaboration. This work is the result of a collaboration between Observatoire des sciences et des technologies in Montreal and RAND Europe.

The National Institute for Health Research at 10 Years: An Impact Synthesis: 100 Impact Case Studies

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funds and supports world-leading clinical and applied health and social care research, as well as research infrastructure in the NHS. Providing £1 billion of funding each year, NIHR aims to: drive the faster translation of new treatments, technologies and diagnostics to improve outcomes for health and care services; promote the wealth of the nation, including via inward investment from the health research community; pull basic science discoveries through into tangible benefits for patients and the public; and provide research evidence to support more effective and cost-effective NHS delivery. To mark its tenth anniversary, the Department of Health commissioned the Policy Research in Science and Medicine unit to consider the question: "What are the ways in which NIHR has benefited the health research landscape in the past ten years?" This study identifies and celebrates 100 examples of positive change resulting from NIHR's support of research. A synthesis of 100 case studies is provided, which highlights the benefits and wider impacts of research, capacity building, and other activities undertaken with NIHR's support since its creation in 2006. The study concludes with a reflection of how the NIHR has transformed R&D in and for the NHS and wider health service, and the people they serve. The study draws together---for the first time---examples of the breadth of NIHR's impacts in a single resource. It will be of interest to healthcare professionals involved in research, academics working in health and social care, and members of the public wishing to understand the value of research in the NHS and the wider health and care system.