Medical science may be developing treatments that would scarcely seem imaginable 20 years ago but just how effectively are those treatments being applied and are patients deriving the optimum benefit from them?
That question will be addressed later this month at a conference at University College Cork, entitled "Taking Stock and Moving Forward", which looks at how effectively medical treatments are applied in Ireland.
The conference is being organised by a health services research group at UCC headed by Prof Colin Bradley, the university's first professor of general practice, and it will hear theoretical and research papers from some 16 speakers.
Internationally acclaimed for his own research work on GP prescribing, Prof Bradley explained: "Health services research looks at why advances in medical science sometimes fail to get translated into benefits to patients.
"One good example is the application of clot-busting drugs such as streptokinase. It was developed to treat victims of heart attacks but it has to be delivered within a time window; it has a pain-to-needle time of just a few hours if it's to be effective.
"Research has shown that in parts of Britain it's not being delivered within that time window. The reasons for that are varied; it may, for example, be due to lack of knowledge about the time window.
"In some cases, the problem is logistical, not being able to get ambulances with suitably trained paramedics into remote areas in time, and then in other cases the existing hospital admissions systems may be excessively slow."
Some years ago the Irish Health Research Board commissioned a report into the state of health services research in Ireland and found that it was underdeveloped compared to other states, explained Prof Bradley. That report showed that while health services research was going on in Ireland and while there were people with the skills and experience to conduct better quality health service research, their efforts were fragmented and poorly co-ordinated.
Since then, more funding and a number of research fellowships have been established and a number of studies have been carried out but it was conferences such as this which helped to draw together experts from different fields and stimulate debate.
Previously, they had not had a forum for presenting them in Ireland, he added.