Grant: Foundation Grant

Canada is a nation of pilot projects, with a lot of resources spent on implementation but failure to address sustainability. Consider older adults admitted to acute care hospitals: a large body of research shows early mobilisation decreases their length of stay and improves health. We then need to develop a strategy to implement early mobilisation in hospitals, this is called a knowledge translation (KT) intervention. It may include clinician audit and feedback, local opinion leaders and task shifting mobility to volunteers. If the KT interventions are effective, how do we then sustain (or adapt) them across hospitals? Despite a successful KT intervention implementation, there is a tendency to return to old practices after implementation activities end and attention is focused on the next clinical intervention. Even if implementation has a small benefit, sustained implementation can have a major impact over the long-term. Thus, failure to sustain implementation has implications for cost and patient care and diminishes trust and support for future implementation. This research program is targeted to address this challenge; specifically, our team of clinicians, patients, caregivers, policy makers and researchers will complete research to sustain effective KT interventions to optimise care of older adults with chronic diseases. We will develop tools to inform researchers and knowledge users about how best to sustain implementation, thereby improving care for older adults.The outcomes will be increased sustainability of chronic disease management strategies, developing training and tools to support a variety of knowledge users (including policy makers, clinicians, researchers) in their KT activities and a cadre of highly qualified personnel.