‘When HSR achieves the same level of political influence as the life sciences community, then it will be judged to have matured.’ Professor Martin Marshall UCL reviews Improving health services; background, method and applications by Walter Holland [Clinical Medicine 2015 Vol 15, No 4: 401]. As well as indicating HSR’s growing impact and importance, Martin challenges ‘current and future generations of researchers and health service leaders … to learn from his passion for evidence-informed policy and practice, and his commitment to ensuring that research is, above all, useful.’
Improving health services; background, method and applications
Walter Holland. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013. 272pp.
The title of this wonderfully informative book establishes an appropriate set of expectations for the reader. Professor Walter Holland could have called his book ‘A istory of health services research’ or ‘Reflections on the career of a pioneer health services researcher’. Instead he makes a statement of purpose for health services research (HSR), a statement full of active intent, and sets the scene for a passionate description of why HSR is important.
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