Grant: Meetings, Planning and Dissemination Grant: Knowledge Translation

Quality improvement (QI) strategic planning and implementation is required for accreditation but is not uniformly practiced in Ontario acute care hospitals. The implementation of strategic plans in corporate environments is complex and resource-intensive, and may not be transferrable to the health care sector. There has been little investigation of QI strategic plan development and implementation in health care organizations, and managers have emphasized the need for guidance, including how to more rapidly prioritize competing demands and address the gap between medical and organizational goals. Primary research is needed to develop and test strategies for translating QI objectives into actions that achieve change within health care organizations. To develop a meaningful research agenda and establish essential partnerships we propose to hold a one-day nominal group meeting involving researchers who study knowledge translation, organizational change, QI, and strategic planning, and health care executives and managers with responsibility for planning, implementing, facilitating and monitoring QI to: 1) Explore and discuss QI strategic planning development and implementation needs and barriers; 2) Achieve consensus on strategies for QI strategic planning and implementation that may overcome competing internal and external demands which warrant further research, and 3) Establish relevant and feasible approaches and methods by which to investigate those research questions.