Developing and testing of research implementation strategies in complex health care organizations in Canada and Sweden

Start/End Dates: January 2005 - March 2005

Investigators: Carole A. Estabrooks, Lars Wallin, Jean-Louis Denis (University of Montreal), Kerstin Nilsson Kajermo (Karolinska Institute, Sweden), Thomas Tyden (Dalarna Research Institute, Sweden), Patricia Reay (UA)

Funder: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)

Grant Amount: $25,000

This project lead to the development of the proposal for "Knowledge to action in elder care settings: Understanding a good day's work", which is currently awaiting funding.

" A good day's work" is about understanding the role different forms of knowledge play in producing a good day's work from the perspective of the direct care provider in long term care.

The products resulting from this project will contribute to:

(a) an understanding of the relationship between work and knowledge and thus to knowledge translation theory development,

(b) identifying contextual conditions that influence the relationship between work and knowledge translation, and

(c) the development of better strategies to enhance the use of knowledge in LTC.

We have chosen to do this research in LTC because it is an important, but often overlooked part of our healthcare system. Elder care is an important dimension of the health care system. Recent reports however point to sub-optimal levels of quality in LTC. We believe we can make a difference in the quality of care elders receive by understanding the relationship between knowledge and work. This understanding, we believe, can be used to develop better and more innovative knowledge translation interventions to increase the use of new knowledge by healthcare providers in long term care settings which will improve the care elders receive.