Knowledge translation approaches to implement guidelines? Plan, assess, tailor, and learn

Excerpt

Passive dissemination of guidelines to health care professionals is insufficient to change practice. Three weeks after the mailing of national Asthma Diagnosis and Treatment Guidelines to New Zealand general practitioners, only 46% of survey responders were able to locate the received guidelines, 12% had read them in detail, and only 20% indicated that it would change their practice [1]. In the face of information overload and guideline burnout among physicians [2], there is evidence that active dissemination with a simple actionable message may be more effective [3]. The Knowledge-to-Action cycle (see Figure 1 below) promoted by Graham and colleagues and strongly endorsed by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, provides a framework for effective active dissemination [4]. It can be conceptualised in four main steps - namely planning, assessing, tailoring and learning.

…