Evidence-based implementation is essential to ensure evidence-based practice and policy. This proposal will establish an implementation research hub to 1) lead partnered research on the process and impact of tailoring strategies to implement evidence-based interventions and 2) build capacity and collaborations in implementation science. The research programme focuses on improving care for older people and people with diabetes, two groups prioritised in the national healthcare strategy, Sláintecare. Both are ideally suited to studying implementation gaps as there is a wealth of research on effective interventions to improve quality of care and health outcomes. Despite this multilevel context-specific challenges to implementation are well-documented. Tailoring strategies to the contextual factors that influence implementation is critical to success but existing methods to guide the tailoring are under-developed. This research will examine different approaches to tailoring, drawing on established research methods (such as consensus methods and discrete choice experiments) with stakeholder groups (service users, health professionals, managers, policy makers). Researchers will work with partners to pilot implementation strategies in health service settings and evaluate their effect on implementation and health outcomes. Partnering with two health partners on their prioritised evidence-based interventions will allow for an overarching case study design to compare tailoring approaches and ensure successful efforts are replicable across different settings and groups. To build capacity and collaborations in implementation science, researchers and health service stakeholders involved in implementation will receive training from international experts, and become part of a network of expertise in Ireland. Through strategic partnerships across the health service, this research programme will ensure that professionals, managers and policy makers know about evidence-based interventions, health professionals are supported to deliver them, and service users receive them fairly, promptly and properly.
