Implementation Research (IR) in Health: A Practical Guide

This Guide was developed by the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHPSR) with support from the Implementation Research Platform (IRP). The IRP was formed in recognition of the need for reliable, relevant research to inform the implementation of health policies and programmes, and to ensure that needed interventions are made widely available within health systems through effective scale-up. The AHPSR is the host of the IRP Secretariat and leads its work. The AHPSR’s main goal is to promote the generation and use of health policy and systems research as a means to improve health and health systems in low- and middle-income countries.

This guide provide you an in depth knowledge on followings;

Why is research on implementation needed?

• Despite abundant evidence of the efficacy of affordable, life-saving interventions, there is little understanding of how to deliver those interventions effectively in diverse settings and within the wide range of existing health systems.
• Implementation issues often arise as a result of contextual factors that policy-makers and health system managers may not even have considered.
• Implementation research is crucial to improving our understanding of the challenges we face in confronting the real world by broadening and deepening our understanding of these real-world factors and how they impact implementation.
• Implementation research is of immense value in shining a light on the often bumpy interface between what can be achieved in theory and what happens in practice.

Implementation research should be aligned with need, both in the sense that it addresses the concerns of the intended audience, and is also responsive to the particularities of the subject under study. It is helpful to ask the following key questions;

Does the research clearly address a question concerning implementation?
Is there a clear description of what is being implemented (e.g. details of the practice, programme, or policy)?
Does the research involve an implementation strategy? If so, is it described and examined appropriately?
Is the research conducted in a real-world setting? If so, are these conditions described in sufficient detail?
Does the research appropriately consider implementation outcome variables?
Does the research appropriately consider context and other factors that influence implementation?
Does the research appropriately consider changes over time, and the level of complexity of the system?
Does the research clearly identify the target audience for the research and how it can be used?

How is implementation research used?

• Implementation research is vital to understanding context, assessing performance, informing implementation and facilitating health systems strengthening.
• Implementation research is particularly important in supporting the scale-up of interventions and integrating them into health systems at the national level.
• Implementation research can also be used to help organizations develop the capacity to learn.

What is Implementation Research?

• Implementation research can address any aspect of implementation, including the factors affecting implementation, the processes of implementation themselves and the outcomes, or end-products of the implementation under study.
• Implementation research is applicable and relevant in many different domains and, depending on the subject under study, is applicable and relevant to different degrees, with certain research questions being implementation-light and others implementation heavy.
• Implementation research often focuses on the strategies needed to deliver or implement new interventions, which are referred to as ‘implementation strategies’.
• In order to understand implementation processes, it is essential to use a framework for conceptualizing and measuring implementation outcomes. Implementation outcome variables are the building blocks of this framework and serve as indicators of how well a given implementation is actually working.

DOWNLOAD PDF FILE: Implementation Research in Health: A Practical Guide

For more information about Implementation Research, Opportunities and local partnership in Nepal;

Implementation Research (IR) Initiative in Nepal

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Implementationresearch Twitter: https://twitter.com/ir_nepal

Feel free to contact;

Sagun Paudel,
HA, BPH, MPH (Implementation Research)
mail4sagun@gmail.com
https://www.sagunpaudel.com.np

Follow this link for: IR OPPORTUNITIES, guidelines, documents, recent publications AND ANNOUNCEMENT (Global Opportunities)

Implementation Research (IR) toolkit(Participants Manual & Facilitator’s Guide)

The toolkit was developed by TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases. Over 200 researchers, academics, disease control programme managers, policy-makers, health administrators, communication scientists and journalists contributed to test and evaluate the toolkit. Funding was provided by governmental and co-sponsor core contributions to TDR. Specific support was also provided by USAID/PEPFAR, and by the Implementation Research Platform, which is based at the World Health Organization.

Why IR?

Implementation research (IR) has been used to increase the use of bednets in Africa to reduce malaria, address the rise in multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in eastern Europe, prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in South Africa, and ensure that ivermectin is distributed to 60 million Africans to control onchocerciasis, otherwise called river blindness. It is a very powerful type of research that can identify implementation barriers and improve health care delivery.

The need to address implementation barriers and improve delivery of health services is often greatest in settings where health systems are the weakest or non-existent. Implementation research addresses these bottlenecks by identifying optimal approaches for a particular setting. Unfortunately, the essential skills to conduct this type of research are limited in these settings and academic public health curricula rarely provide courses on this topic.

This is a type of research that requires partnership and multidisciplinary teams. It goes beyond scientists to include policy-makers, the media and community members. So this toolkit was developed to help countries struggling with critical health systems issues to learn new approaches that can rapidly address specific challenges.

Key characteristics of implementation research;

• Systematic
• Multidisciplinary
• Contextual
• Complex

Toolkit Overview

This toolkit comprises seven modules, each providing a participant manual, workshop session slides, and links to relevant further reading and references.

• Module 1: Defining and contextualizing implementation research
• Module 2: Developing an implementation research proposal
• Module 3: Planning to conduct the research
• Module 4: Data analysis and presentation
• Module 5: Dissemination of research findings
• Module 6: Monitoring and evaluation
• Links to relevant further reading and references.

Purpose of toolkit

The purpose of the toolkit is to help strengthen participant skills in six areas:

• Contextualizing implementation research issues.
• Developing an implementation research proposal.
• Planning to execute implementation research.
• Analysing implementation research data.
• Communicating the findings and feeding them back into the health system.
• Monitoring and evaluating the project.

Who can use this toolkit?

• Health care service providers
• Programme staff
• Researchers
• Decision-makers
• Finance and administration officers
• Media

Learn how to:

• Identify barriers to implementation and formulate the research question
• Make your case for funding
• Set up a study design and appropriate methodologies
• Plan the project (budget, personnel, timelines, monitoring and evaluation)
• Collect, analyze and present research information
• Develop a dissemination plan
• Monitor and evaluate your research project

PARTICIPANTS MANUAL 2014

FACILITATOR’S GUIDE 2014

TDR IMPLEMENTATION RESEARCH TOOLKIT DIGITAL VERSION

TDR MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSE ON IR 

For more information about Implementation Research, Opportunities and local partnership in Nepal;

Implementation Research (IR) Initiative in Nepal

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Implementationresearch Twitter: https://twitter.com/ir_nepal

Feel free to contact;

Sagun Paudel,
HA, BPH, MPH (Implementation Research)
mail4sagun@gmail.com
https://www.sagunpaudel.com.np

Follow this link for: IR OPPORTUNITIES AND ANNOUNCEMENT (Global Opportunities)