Opinion: Why don’t they just do what the evidence says? The challenge and promise of implementation science
The test of a new team-based way to treat bipolar disorder was, by all estimations, a highly successful research effort. Two studies, one in the Department of Veterans Affairs and one in a large HMO, both found significant improvements in outcomes, at little to no added cost, with team-based care. Yet within a year of the end of the studies, not a single one of the 15 sites that had taken part in the two trials had incorporated team-based care into their standard work flows.
Having evidence-based health care interventions languish without being adopted is neither unusual or new. The field of implementation science has emerged to help rectify that problem.
