Helen Higham
Director of the OxSTaR Centre
- Associate Professor
- Consultant Anaesthetist
We focus on improving quality and safety in healthcare through research, education and innovation.
Helen is an Associate Professor in NDCN and a Consultant Anaesthetist in the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She has always had a keen interest in medical education and has been the Director of Undergraduate Teaching in the Nuffield Division of Anaesthetics since she took up her post in 2001. She has been the Director of the multi-award winning Oxford Simulation, Teaching and Research Centre (OxSTaR) since it opened in 2008.
Helen was a founding member of the Executive Committee for the Association of Simulated Practice in Healthcare and was President between 2014 and 2017. She was appointed Associate Dean for Simulation and Patient Safety in NHSE Thames Valley in 2021 and remains active nationally in strategic planning for simulation based education.
OxSTaR's research group comprises a diverse array of clinicians, psychologists and human factors scientists. Our primary research interests are patient safety and clinical education research and we have many projects underway in both areas including:
- Measuring and improving team performance in healthcare
- The use of simulation methodologies to design and improve patient pathways
- Virtual reality as a tool in clinical education and assessment
- Artificial intelligence to support decision making in clinical practice
- The use of simulation to accelerate learning for surgical specialities post-pandemic
- Improving consent processes and patient engagement in clinical research using digital technologies
- Decision making and prioritisation in complex, dynamic work environments
Recent publications
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Reducing inequalities through greater diversity in clinical trials – As important for medical devices as for drugs and therapeutics
Journal article
Roope LSJ. et al, (2025), Contemporary Clinical Trials Communications, 45
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Designing better systems to navigate the sepsis-antimicrobial stewardship tension.
Journal article
Lounsbury O. et al, (2025), Lancet Infect Dis
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Study protocol for putting the ‘Person’ in the PiCTuRE: an exploratory sequential mixed methods-based design, exploring how precision medicine is implemented and experienced by people living with a primary tumour of the craniospinal axis
Journal article
Mawhinney G. et al, (2025), BMC Cancer, 25
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Learning from What Goes Right in Healthcare
Chapter
Higham H. and Lounsbury O., (2025), Learning from Near Misses, 96 - 110
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Systems analysis of clinical incidents: development of a new edition of the London Protocol
Journal article
Vincent C. et al, (2025), BMJ Quality & Safety