Guest editors’ introduction to the special section on information technology and evidence implementation

Healthcare is experiencing a transformation—perhaps as significant as the publication of the first randomized controlled trial—in the ways in which basic discovery is translated into effective practice. The change is being precipitated by efforts to undergird the healthcare industry with the same transformational capacities from information technology as is afforded to other sectors in the economy. Although the transformation has been slow in materializing, change is expected to accelerate under the stimulating influence of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. As the changes ripple throughout the healthcare sector, two aspects of medical care in the twenty-first century are expected to rise in importance: data and behavior. Each of the articles within this inaugural issue of Translational Behavioral Medicine has been selected to illustrate treatment of these two assets in one way or another. The editors hope this first issue will serve as a vanguard illustration for how behavioral scientists can be included as integral members of the design team in creating a new platform for evidence implementation in the USA and abroad.