Responding to the Call: a New JGIM Area of Emphasis for Implementation and Quality Improvement Sciences
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Seattle-Denver Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care, Department of Health Services, University of Washington School of Public Health, Seattle, WA, USA; 2Health Research Kaiser Permanente Northwest Region, Center for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University - Portland State University School of Public Health, Portland, OR, USA.
J Gen Intern Med DOI: 10.1007/s11606-020-06229-8 © Society of General Internal Medicine (This is a U.S. government work and not under copyright protection in the U.S.; foreign copyright protection may apply) 2020
are pleased to announce the publication of the special W eissue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine on implementation science (IS) and quality improvement (QI), an event which, marks the formal addition of IS/QI as an area of emphasis for JGIM. Why is this important? In the words of JGIM Editor-in-Chief Steven Asch, “We all love the research we publish in JGIM, but research without action always seems incomplete. Increasing our emphasis on research on how best to diffuse best practices and even publishing examples of improvement efforts completes that circle.” The articles in this special issue represent steps in that circle from knowledge to action. This issue comes out at a point in time when both the strengths and vulnerabilities of our healthcare system have been exposed. The current COVID-19 crisis has presented unique opportunities to study accelerated implementation and challenges in pacing the organizational learning with practice needs in real time. The COVID-19 crisis has also focused attention on systemic racism in diagnosis and treatment of illness in people of color. It reminds us of the importance of IS/QI research in developing a better prepared, more resilient healthcare system; to be prepared to pivot to respond to emergent challenges; and conversely to remain focused on the long-term work that will help create a better healthcare system tomorrow. The scholarly communities of IS and QI have co-evolved to address the challenge of using the systematic rigor of science to help close quality gaps. Hallmarks of this work include attention to how the change process occurs; sensitivity to context; the interplay of implementation participants with the evidence-anchored innovations being implemented; and how generalizable knowledge is adapted to specific clinical contexts to improve a specific outcome 1, 2. In this JGIM Special Issue, our aim was to showcase research that advances actual
care delivery by applying and testing knowledge from these synergistic fields. To achieve that aim, we sought innovative research that applied evidence across diverse delivery systems and settings. While we wanted theoretically grounded work, we favored papers that empirically illustrate the application of foundational knowledge and skills from QI and IS to improve general internal medicine, such as Rikin and colleagues’ steppedwedge trial of an opt-in e-Consult program and its effect on specialty care visi
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