POSTPONED: Does implementation science neglect implementation in pragmatic trials?

Roundtable seminar
October 19th, 11am-12pm

Title: Does implementation science neglect implementation in pragmatic trials?
Convened by Vashti Berry1, Sarah Morgan-Trimmer1 and Nick Axford2

Book a place: www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/WM36CBQ

Implementation science is the study of methods that promote the integration of research findings and evidence into health and social care policy and practice. It seeks to understand what support and accommodations are needed in the systems and behaviour of professionals to ensure sustainable uptake, adoption, and implementation of evidence-based interventions. The focus of implementation science to date has been closing the gap between known or demonstrated effective interventions and existing practice, in other words getting services and professionals to replicate evidence-based programmes. In this roundtable discussion seminar, we question this research focus and suggest that there is valuable implementation research to be done in the early stages of efficacy and effectiveness testing, long before interventions are ready to be scaled. This development phase in pragmatic trials, often called service design or development, involves making assessments of existing system processes and professional behavior, and either making adaptations to the intervention to fit or considering methods and strategies for influencing professional behaviour. This is an iterative process that is often neglected in the evaluation assessment. We think there is an opportunity for implementation science to discover effective (and ineffective) implementation strategies to accompany promising interventions by unpacking and studying the methods that underlie this service design process. We look forward to discussing these issues with interested colleagues.

[1 Institute of Health Research]
[2 Dartington Social Research Unit]