How best practices are copied, transferred, or translated between health care facilities

Abstract

The approach provides a framework for assessing organizational context and capabilities to guide copy/transfer/translation of best practices. A roadmap is provided to assist managers and practitioners to select appropriate learning modes for building success and positive systemic change.

Development, characteristics and impact of quality improvement casebooks: a scoping review

“…Given uncertainty about the effectiveness of QI strategies [4][5][6] or approaches to support QI [12][13][14][15][16], this research addressed a gap in knowledge on how to share wisdom and advice about QI generated by multiple initiatives conveniently compiled in a casebook, enabling others to learn from and apply those experiences in their own context. Definitions and descriptions of the intent of casebooks included in eligible studies support the idea that stories about "inthe-field" experiences convey experiential knowledge, which appears to be an essential ingredient, on its own, or possibly supplementary to other knowledge-sharing strategies that support QI such as QI collaboratives or coaching [9][10][11]. The fundamental role of experiential knowledge in healthcare was established by what is considered a "landmark" study, which showed that clinicians rarely used published research, guidelines or other forms of codified knowledge, and instead relied on "mindlines", defined as collectively reinforced, internalized experiential guidelines, informed mainly through interactions with colleagues and opinion leaders, and by other sources of largely experiential knowledge [30].…”

“…Interviews and focus groups with representatives of public health units revealed that experiential knowledge was used to inform programme planning decisions, including identifying the need, bringing a team together, and designing and developing the programme [9]. To generate insight on how QI practices are spread, Guzman et al drew from the knowledge management and organizational learning literatures to develop a framework that identified three processes required to adopt QI practices: transfer of knowledge about practices between organizations, copying best practices, and translating them into a new context [10]. The framework also proposed that experiential knowledge about QI increases in relevance as organizational complexity increases.…”

Action research and health system strengthening: the case of the health sector support programme in Mauritania, West Africa

“…A systems approach moves away from this linear chain of command [34,39]. Learning by doing through action research entails a certain level of reasoning, experimenting, analysing and adapting according to the lessons learned [40,41]. This concept was new for most actors and a certain reluctance was observed during discussions.…”

Utilization of injury care case studies: a systematic review of the World Health Organization’s “Strengthening care for the injured: Success stories and lessons learned from around the world”

“…Our results did not capture a clear example of case replication as evidence of translation. However, knowing that on average this process can take up to 17 years, documentation of such direct implementation may yet be a ways off 4,5 . Also, identifying this gap is of critical importance if efforts to improve the utility of case studies are to be benchmarked in the future against previous evaluations.…”

“…Translation of evidence-to-practice is a public health priority and known to be slow, often delayed up to 17 years in developed health systems 4,5 . Data suggest that patients in the United States receive just over one-half of recommended processes in medical care 6 .…”