Building knowledge integration systems for evidenceinformed decisions

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to describe methods and models designed to build a comprehensive, integrative framework to guide the research to policy and practice cycle in health care.

Designmethodologyapproach

Current models of science are summarised, identifying specific challenges they create for knowledge to action KTA. Alternative models for KTA are outlined to illustrate how researchers and decision makers can work together to fit the KTA model to specific problems and contexts. The Canadian experience with the evolving paradigm shift is described, along with recent initiatives to develop platforms and tools that support the new thinking. Recent projects to develop and refine methods for embedded research are described. The paper concludes with a summary of lessons learned and recommendations that will move the KTA field towards an integrated science.

Findings

Conceptual models for KTA are advancing, benefiting from advances in team science, development of logic models that address the realities of complex adaptive systems, and new methods to more rapidly deliver knowledge syntheses more useful to decision and policy makers.

Practical implications

KTA is more likely when coproduced by researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. Closer collaboration requires shifts in thinking about the ways we work, capacity development, and greater learning from practice.

Originalityvalue

More powerful ways of thinking about the complexities of knowledge to action are provided, along with examples of tools and priorities drawn from systems thinking.

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Most cited references 12

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External validity: we need to do more.

Lawrence W. Green, David B. Abrams, Mark Goldstein … (2006)

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In vivo studies of transdisciplinary scientific collaboration Lessons learned and implications for active living research.

Kimari Phillips, Juliana Fuqua, Richard Harvey … (2005)

The past 2 decades have witnessed a surge of interest and investment in transdisciplinary research teams and centers. Only recently, however, have efforts been made to evaluate the collaborative processes and scientific and public policy outcomes of these endeavors. This paper offers a conceptual framework for understanding and evaluating transdisciplinary research, and describes a large-scale national initiative, the National Institutes of Health Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Centers (TTURCs) program, undertaken to promote cross-disciplinary scientific collaboration in the field of tobacco use science and prevention. A 5-year evaluation of collaborative processes and outcomes observed across multiple TTURC centers conducted during 1999 to 2004 is described. The findings highlight key contextual circumstances faced by participating centers (i.e., the breadth of disciplines and departments represented by each center, the extent to which members had worked together on prior projects, spatial proximity among researchers' offices, and frequency of their face-to-face interaction) that influenced their readiness for collaboration and prompted them to follow different pathways toward transdisciplinary integration. Implications of these findings for developing and evaluating future transdisciplinary research initiatives in the field of active living research are discussed.