Table 4 Summary of embedding phase process facilitators and barriers

Facilitators

Physical location of economist in an open plan office in the ‘noisy’ accessible section

Yes, so that actually does help things because there’s a lot of flow of information and there’s a lot of things that do get around really quickly, which is a real advantage. PHN PARTICIPANT 11

Administrative support from economists’ organisation to book formal meeting requests

…asking [executive assistant] at HMRI to coordinate these meetings - have provided her email to [site lead] so that these can be arranged and coordinated by one person so everyone is on the same page. eE 1

Identification of existing in-house expertise

We already had an economist that we didn’t know about … so she’s already got a real interest and expertise in that area, so that was really handy to have someone who could put her hand up and say, “Great. This is terrific and I’m more than available to continue to push those things.” PHN PARTICIPANT 11

Barriers

Depth of embedding

…you can't just eliminate all the other things that you have on your books. So we don't have the luxury of being able to just be focused mentally on what's in front of us for this. There's a whole heap of noise and movement with all of the other projects at different stages of completion that are in the background, that get sidelined …everybody's juggling multiple demands. eE 2

The need for a communication and visibility strategy

It seemed a little bit confusing in terms of what the embedded Economist was here to do, and for who. I think we were getting some mixed messages from the executive about that. You know, so we were told that there were specific programs that had been identified and that’s what would be worked on. But then we were also told, you know, at any time go and have a chat and see what we can do. And that probably created a little bit of conflict. PHN PARTICIPANT 14

The need for an exit strategy

The ugly is that projects and questions are coming to me now that I’ve got a very limited time to really to properly answer. eE 1

Length of embedding

My only criticism was that I would have liked to have seen him around for more than three months. So, I felt that three months was too short. I think he should have been with us for at least six months or probably 12 months. PHN PARTICIPANT 1