Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Corresponding author. Implementation research necessitates a shift from clinical trial methods in both the conduct of the study and in the way that it is evaluated given the focus on the impact of implementation strategies. That is, the methods or techniques to support the adoption and delivery of a clinical or preventive intervention, program, or policy.
As strategies target one or more levels within the service delivery system, evaluating their impact needs to follow suit. This article discusses the methods and practices involved in quantitative evaluations of implementation research studies. We focus on evaluation methods that characterize and quantify the overall impacts of an implementation strategy on various outcomes. This article discusses available measurement methods for common quantitative implementation outcomes involved in such an evaluation—adoption, fidelity, implementation cost, reach, and sustainment—and the sources of such data for these metrics using established taxonomies and frameworks.
Last, we present an example of a quantitative evaluation from an ongoing randomized rollout implementation trial of the Collaborative Care Model for depression management in a large primary healthcare system. Keywords: implementation measurement, implementation research, summative evaluation. As part of this special issue on implementation science, this article discusses quantitative methods for evaluating implementation research studies and presents an example of an ongoing implementation trial for illustrative purposes.
These results help decision makers understand the overall worth of an implementation strategy and whether to upscale, modify, or discontinue Bauer et al. This topic complements others in this issue on formative evaluation Elwy et al. Implementation strategies are methods or techniques used to enhance the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of a clinical program or practice Powell et al.
To grasp the evaluation methods used in implementation research, one must appreciate the nature of this research and how the study designs, aims, and measures differ in fundamental ways from those methods with which readers will be most familiar—that is, evaluations of clinical efficacy or effectiveness trials.
