The Edge brings together ideas and the very latest sources of knowledge so people can inspire and inform each other to be disruptive innovators. The knowledge we share comes from many diverse disciplines, schools of thought, industries and sectors from across the world. Our premise is that by sharing and making sense of leading edge knowledge about change in a generic sense and applying it to our own contexts, we can dramatically improve our prospects for transforming health and care.
The aim is to support colleagues in health and care to think differently about the ‘rules of change’ and make sense of it in their own context, leading to effective change practice and better outcomes for patients.
We are overwhelmed with raw, unprocessed, context-free data. As leaders of health and care, we often don’t know whether the knowledge that we have identified is relevant, accurate or from a trustworthy source. There is a constant risk of trading quality for quantity and accuracy for timeliness. We probably don’t need more content, we need less; but we need content that is high quality and right for our context. The Edge curates this knowledge, filtering, selecting and highlighting the right information for health and care radicals.
So why should health professionals take the time to read the Edge in an already overcrowded schedule? Finding the right information and making sense of it takes an increasing amount of time, attention and focus, and by curating this knowledge the Edge brings pertinent high-quality content straight to your inbox. The Edge does the hard work of collecting, filtering, evaluating, contextualising and sharing knowledge from multiple sources, so readers don’t have to. For those looking to affect change, the Edge provide the evidence, knowledge and articles to support and complement change actions.
For those looking to develop their career, reading the Edge can significantly support them with their continuous professional development (CPD) by introducing you to the latest, cutting-edge research and studies.
Kate Pound, Nurse and Quality and Improvement Lead at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, shared with us why she is an avid reader of The Edge and why she feels it can benefit frontline staff: "To me the biggest difference the Edge has made to me is the sifting through of the information, and the curation it gives to articles to tell me whether this is information I can trust or not. Also, the information is sent to me, so I don’t have to go source it. There’s loads of new ideas that you can take to your place of work and the final thing for me, is that a lot of the articles are quick, five minute reads, that I can read easily on my lunch break."
If you are looking for a simple action you can do for NHS Change Day 2015, then why not subscribe to the Edge? The Edge will help you to stay abreast of the most modern change knowledge in health and care and by commenting on the articles and by following The Edge on Twitter, you can join the conversation and build links and communities with change agents from across the globe.
The next edition of the Edge is being published on Friday 27 February, and will feature specially curated content with a global perspective around making change happen, and practical ways to work out loud #WOL. NHS Change Day will be taking over the Edge on March 11, sharing articles from global change experts.
The Edge is the first virtual hub for Health and Care change agents and will feature guest editions in 2015 from leading Health, Quality and Patient safety Organisations in New Zealand and British Columbia. This shows the global reach of The Edge which currently has over 6,579 subscribers in 92 countries.
You can subscribe to the Edge at theedge.nhsiq.nhs.uk.