By Aaron Leppin
Just last week I had the privilege of attending the NIH’ 5th annual Training Institute for the Dissemination and Implementation of Research in Health (hyperlink). The objective of this program is to train and develop a cohort of researchers with expertise in promoting and evaluating processes that translate evidence into practice.
Consonant with an MDM-based approach to care, the desire of implementation science is to ensure that the safest and most effective care is delivered to patients reliably. Traditionally, this field has focused its efforts on overcoming the underuse of evidence-based interventions. We now realize, however, that many interventions are implemented in practice that are of low or no value. What has become increasingly clear to me in my own research, however, is that many interventions become less effective and/or fail to achieve their full impact as a result of the way they are implemented. This idea, termed “mis-implementation,” is related to but distinct from the misuse of medical interventions.
In 2014, Prasad and Ioannidis outlined the evidence-based rationale for “de-implementing” contradicted, unproven, and aspiring healthcare practices (Imp Sci. 2014; 9:1) (hyperlink). This paper has been well received by the implementation science community, yet no clear and actionable guidance exists for practice-based efforts to de-implement interventions or, for that matter, to avoid mis-implementation entirely.
I am struck by the collective capacity of the MDM community to guide this emerging science. How does our expertise in evidence-based medicine, over-medicalization, and implementation science coalesce in this space? I have my ideas but am interested in others. What are examples of mis-implementation that you have experienced? How were you able (or unable) to overcome these challenges? How have you de-implemented ineffective interventions?
