Nothing about Them, without Them: Techniques for Including Clinicians in Implementation Research

Hall CG, Smith JL, Benedict S, Brooks J. Nothing about Them, without Them: Techniques for Including Clinicians in Implementation Research. Paper presented at: VA HSR&D / QUERI National Meeting; 2012 Jul 19; National Harbor, MD.

Related HSR&D Project(s)

• SDP 08-375 – Monitoring and Management for Metabolic Effects of Antipsychotics
• RRP 11-377 – An Assessment of Family Centered Practices in the TBI/Polytrauma System of Care

Workshop Objectives: Clinical-research partnerships are crucial to changing practice within VHA to maximize treatment benefit for Veterans. Equally important, and sometimes challenging, is how to engage clinicians in meaningful participation in the activities to make the desired practice changes. In this workshop, facilitators will discuss methods the PTBRI and MH QUERI have used to engage clinicians in projects focused on implementing practice changes to enhance clinical care. PTBRI QUERI will provide examples from work to improve family engagement in care in which the QUERI worked in close partnership with VHA Central Office. MH QUERI will provide examples from partnerships with mental health clinicians to improve metabolic side effect monitoring for Veterans taking antipsychotic medications. This workshop will: 1) Provide participants with examples of techniques the PTBRI and MH QUERI have used to engage clinicians in projects led by implementation researchers; 2) Describe the use of evidencebased quality improvement (EBQI) and facilitation methods to incorporate clinician feedback into the design, operationalization, and refinement of successful implementation strategies; 3) Describe the complementary role of formative evaluation in eliciting and integrating clinician perspectives; 4) Describe factors that help or hinder conducting web-based surveys with clinical teams to collect information to inform design of an implementation project; and 5) Demonstrate a novel technique that can be used to explore clinical problems and develop promising solutions. Activities: This 90-minute workshop will include presentations by two QUERI implementation research coordinators, operations partners, and clinicians, as well as an active learning activity in which attendees will employ a novel method to design a technique for eliciting and incorporating clinician input and feedback into implementation projects. Target Audience: This workshop is aimed at researchers, clinicians, and operations staff with interest in assuring that the perspectives and input of clinical leaders and/or front-line clinicians are elicited and included in project development and implementation. Assumed Audience Familiarity with Topic: No prior knowledge of quality measurement or implementation science is needed to participate in this workshop. The goals of this workshop are to describe and demonstrate methods for eliciting and incorporating clinician perspectives, preferences, and recommendations into implementation research projects.