Prediction of scientific performance in clinical medicine

Abstract

The Netherlands Ministry of Education and Sciences commissioned a study of organizational factors influencing the research performance of clinical units in university hospitals.Hypotheses derived from the international literature and from expert reviews were tested by examining differences between high- and low-performing units. The distinction between high and low performers was based on a number of past performance measures at the unit level, including the number of publications, citations and (international) peer reviews.Multivariate analysis of 43 units representing 18 medical disciplines and 8 university hospitals showed that the time spent on research, the volume of human resources, the degrees of craftmanship of the research manager, and the frequency of international communication were positively related to clinical research performance. Expectancy of rewards resulting from research efforts was correlated negatively to clinical research performance. Discriminant analysis showed that the function including the above-mentioned variables predicts past performance at the unit level fairly accurately.The paper concludes with the recommendations which a national advisory committee has based on the results of the study. These recommendations relate to strategies concerning the optimization of craftmanship, human resource management and economics of scale.