The Implementation and Sustainment Facilitation (ISF) Strategy A promising strategy for improving implementation climate, implementation effectiveness, and intervention effectiveness.

Bryan Garner, Ph.D.
RTI International

ABSTRACT:
Over at least the past 15 years, implementation research has been defined as the scientific study of the use of strategies to adopt and integrate evidence-based health interventions into clinical and community settings in order to improve patient outcomes and benefit population health. Notwithstanding the significant progress that has been made to date, there remains a significant need for implementation research to identify effective and cost-effective strategies for improving the implementation and sustainment of evidence-based health interventions into clinical and community settings. In 2014, the National Institute on Drug Abuse funded a dual-randomized type 2 hybrid trial that focused on experimentally testing the Implementation and Sustainment Facilitation (ISF) Strategy as an adjunct to a staff-focused Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) Strategy. After providing a brief overview of the ATTC Strategy, this presentation will focus on describing the ISF Strategy, with emphasis on: (a) its guiding theory, framework, and principles, (b) its standardized tools/exercise, (c) study results that support its effectiveness and cost-effectiveness as an adjunct to the ATTC strategy, and (d) how it is currently being tested as part of several on-going implementation research experiments.