Dr Helen Hogan Associate Professor

About me

Helen is an Improvement Science Fellow and Associate Professor, Department of Health Services Research and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

She studied medicine at the University of London (Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School) and went on to become a GP and Teaching Fellow in General Practice at Imperial College School of Medicine.

Her interest in health service quality improvement prompted a career shift into public health and, after specialty training in Public Health in the NHS, she joined the Health Services Research and Policy Department at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she is now an Associate Professor.

For the past 16 years, Helen has undertaken high-quality, multi-method health services research with a focus on quality improvement, particularly the safety element. She has advised on national and international health policy and standards of care and developed expert understanding of both the measurement and causes of avoidable harm in hospitals.  In 2019, she became Associate Director and lead for the Safety Theme of the NIHR- funded Quality, Safety and Outcomes of Health and Social Care Policy Research Unit, a collaboration between LSHTM and the universities of Kent and Oxford.

During her Improvement Science Fellowship, Helen expanded her research on the safety of care to look at two new areas: how digital care records can be used measure safety; and the assessment of safety in non-hospital settings including people’s homes and residential care homes for older people. She is currently building on previous research into healthcare-related harm, leading an NIHR-funded study that seeks to understand the factors that influence individuals’ and family's decision-making around seeking legal redress after experiencing such harm. Building on learning from the fellowship her future focus will be on the conceptualisation and assessment of safety across integrated care systems.