Wednesday 21 May 2025 | 13:30-16:30

Format: Half-day workshop

Stream: Science

Content filters: n/a

 

PART ONE: Improvement and implementation science: potato/potahto or apples and oranges?

Improvement and Implementation Science both aim to enhance the quality and effectiveness of healthcare. Each field acknowledges the gaps between the desired and current states while employing analytical approaches to develop impactful solutions. They also recognize the importance of psychology as a key factor in how individuals, teams, and organizations adopt changes in practice. However, there are key differentiating factors between the two fields. Specifically, implementation science primarily focuses on disseminating well-researched evidence-based practices, whereas improvement science often tackles challenges without an initially identified solution.

Our presentation addresses calls within both fields to mutually accelerate progress by learning from each other’s conceptual frameworks and methods. For instance, implementation science is rooted in developing adoption approaches that generalize across various settings. How can delegates, particularly practitioners of improvement science, adapt or adopt these techniques to facilitate the successful dissemination of change ideas on a larger scale?

During this session, we will engage the audience to explore:

• The differences (and similarities) between implementation science and improvement science


• What each discipline can learn from the other


• How an understanding of both can improve our own practice

Amar Shah East London Foundation NHS Trust and NHS England; England

Jonathan Burlison St Jude Children’s Research Hospital; USA

 

PART TWO: Are we connected? From noise to clarity: improving telephone triage in Dutch urgent care based on scientific evidence

Join us for an insightful journey through our process of enhancing the computerized decision support system for telephone triage in Dutch out-of-hours primary urgent care and the national ambulance service (1-1-2). We began by evaluating the safety and efficacy of the existing system for chest discomfort and shortness of breath, then formulated targeted improvements and translated the evidence into practical use in urgent care. Preliminary data on our implementation outcomes will be shared if available.

Balancing safety and efficiency in telephone triage is challenging, and evidence-based improvement is at least equally demanding. Join us to gain insights and practical knowledge on enhancing the quality of urgent care triage systems. Through concise examples, we will demonstrate how co-creation and collaboration with stakeholders and end-users helped us overcome implementation challenges.

Engage actively with other researchers to explore and discuss the importance of connecting with the field when implementing research findings in daily practice.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Describe the (possible) steps to achieve quality improvement in urgent care in co-creation with relevant stakeholders


• Identify several barriers and facilitators for implementing evidence-based improvements to urgent primary care


• Know which determinants/predictors are important for safe and efficient telephone triage within two domains with potentially underlying life-threatening conditions (chest discomfort and shortness of breath)

Mathé Delissen UMC Utrecht; Netherlands

Michelle Spek UMC Utrecht; Netherlands

Dorien Zwart UMC Utrecht; Netherlands

 

PART THREE: What can we learn from implementation science? A better approach to evaluation of improvement

Improvement Science practitioners have struggled to effectively evaluate their improvement projects and initiatives, with consequent difficulty in achieving impact, scaling their work and in publishing their work in high impact Journals. Can we offer a more rigorous approach to understanding results, learning from context, and describing a cause and effect relationship between what we do and what we see? Can we incorporate Implementation Science thinking and frameworks, and better study designs to improve our improvement designs and evaluation? How do we avoid or mitigate bias in our designs? This session will describe and illustrate IHI’s Framework for Improvement Research and Evaluation (FIRE) and provide practical tools to help improvers use the approach in their own work.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Identify the underlying weaknesses of current improvement designs and evaluation frameworks. and the consequences for scale-up and dissemination of QI work


• Incorporate Core Components of Improvement Design and Core Implementation Science Evaluation Frameworks into an evaluation design for improvement initiatives


• Understand the role and mitigation of bias in improvement designs and how to use study designs that establish a causal path for QI theory

Jafet Arrieta Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA

Pierre Barker Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA

 

PART FOUR: What can healthcare improvement learn from social science?

Healthcare improvement has its origins in clinical science and operational principles from the manufacturing sector. Social science is increasingly being recognized as a key component in delivering improvement outcomes.

In this session, we will explore key concepts from social science research and associated practices that can enhance improvement efforts and help us build effective socio-technical approaches to change. This session adopts an interdisciplinary perspective to consider the relational aspect of improvement and change.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Appreciate key social science concepts relevant to healthcare improvement


• Develop action plans for implementing social science-based practices (including social contracts) to foster relationships conducive to collaboration and improvement

Professor Nicola Burgess Professor of Operations Management, University of York; England