Author Identifier (ORCID)
Abstract
Background: Healthcare and academic institutions face growing challenges in strategic planning due to rapid advances in medicine and technology, alongside fiscal and workforce constraints that limit traditional consultation. Participatory approaches offer a way to integrate diverse stakeholder perspectives under these constraints, generating contextually relevant strategies that can indicate whether current directions are appropriate or whether priorities have been overlooked.
Methods: A structured, time-limited participatory workshop was conducted at the 10th Grampian Research Conference (June 2025), that brought together National Health Service (NHS) staff, academia, industry and patients and public communities. Participants engaged in 14 parallel roundtable discussions, with contributions captured on posters and Post-it notes, collecting 148 written annotations. Data were analysed using rapid thematic and content analysis, supplemented by strategic frameworks including Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT/TOWS), and Easy Wins, to identify and prioritise actionable strategies.
Results: Five core themes emerged: (1) access to healthcare and services, (2) patient-centred care and partnership, (3) digital health and service delivery innovation, (4) data access, integration, and governance, and (5) workforce development and culture. SWOT analysis identified strengths in telemedicine, interdisciplinary student training, and patient and public involvement, alongside weaknesses in fragmented data, referral tracking, and workforce pressures. TOWS matrix produced strategy-oriented recommendations such as AI-enabled scheduling, remote monitoring, and transparent referral systems. Easy Wins framework assessment highlighted immediate, low-cost improvements including identifiable NHS caller identification, automated text message reminders, updated informational videos and multilingual materials.
Conclusion: By combining participatory outputs with structured strategy tools, this action-oriented approach demonstrated a resource-efficient model for adaptive planning. The findings align with and extend current national health policy frameworks, offering a replicable approach for institutions aiming to obtain meaningful stakeholder engagement despite fiscal and temporal constraints. Moreover, it provides a blueprint for health systems worldwide to accelerate transformation and deliver patient-centred care in an era of unprecedented change.
Keywords
participatory methods, stakeholder engagement, implementation strategy, healthcare innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, digital health; workforce development, NHS
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
2026
Publication Title
BMC Health Services Research
Publisher
Springer Nature
School
School of Medical and Health Sciences
Funders
The conference was funded by NHS Grampian, University of Aberdeen, and P&J Live.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Lee, M., Anderson, L.A., Piltonen, E., Maheshwari, A., Griffin, J.L., & Vasan, S.S. (2026). Participatory development of innovation and implementation strategy: An action-oriented approach. BMC Health Services Research. Advance Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-026-14420-6