Commentary on the February 2018 Issue of Health Affairs

We received a response from the authors of last month’s featured article to doctoral student Chris Akiba’s commentary that pondered the generalizability of the study. Their response can be found on our website here, and we hope other readers are encouraged to similarly engage with the newsletter.

Instead of a traditional commentary on just one article I wanted to draw attention this month to the February 2018 issue of Health Affairs devoted to the diffusion of innovations. Many of the articles in this issue are highlighted in this month’s newsletter. This themed issue covers important topics such as the diffusion of complex innovations as well as examines diffusion failures and provides a road map for moving from knowledge to adoption. Many of the innovations covered are direct results from the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including ones disseminated from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI).

Although not all the articles examine the innovations in what we may consider the “hardest of core” implementation science methodologies, it is exciting to see implementation science and the focus on diffusion of innovations be featured in a prominent health policy journal. Given the broad audience the journal reaches, including government policymakers, health industry leaders, health care advocates, as well as researchers in health, healthcare, and health policy, this issue certainly helps to bridge the gap between implementation research, practice, and policy.

Read some of the abstracts from this issue.

¹D. A. Dorr, D. J. Cohen and J. Adler-Milstein. (2018). Data-Driven Diffusion Of Innovations: Successes And Challenges In 3 Large-Scale Innovative Delivery Models. Health Aff (Millwood), 37(2), 257-265.

²E. A. Balas and W. W. Chapman. (2018). Road Map For Diffusion Of Innovation In Health Care. Health Aff (Millwood), 37(2), 198-204.

³L. Glidewell, T. A. Willis, D. Petty, R. Lawton, R. R. C. McEachan, E. Ingleson, P. Heudtlass, A. Davies, T. Jamieson, C. Hunter, S. Hartley, K. Gray-Burrows, S. Clamp, P. Carder, S. Alderson, A. J. Farrin and R. Foy. (2018). To what extent can behaviour change techniques be identified within an adaptable implementation package for primary care? A prospective directed content analysis. Implement Sci, 13(1), 32.

⁴L. R. Hirschhorn, R. Ramaswamy, M. Devnani, A. Wandersman, L. A. Simpson and E. Garcia-Elorrio. (2018). Research versus practice in quality improvement? Understanding how we can bridge the gap. Int J Qual Health Care.