Translational Research: Bringing Science to the Provider Through Guideline Implementation

Abstract

Significant variation exists in health care practice patterns that creates concerns regarding the quality of care delivered. Clinical practice based on high-quality evidence provides a rationale for clinical decision making. Resources, such as evidence-based guidelines, provide that evidence to clinicians and improve patient outcomes by decreasing unwanted variation in clinical practice. Because knowledge dissemination alone is ineffective to translate scientific evidence into clinical practice, the field of implementation science has emerged to facilitate this translation of research into routine clinical practice. This article provides an introduction to implementation science, and its application in dentistry to promote adoption of evidence-based guidelines.

Keywords: Dissemination; Dissemination and implementation; Evidence-based dentistry; Evidence-based medicine; Implementation; Implementation science; Knowledge translation; Translational research.