Setting and Population
This evaluation was conducted within The Permanente Medical Group’s Delivery Science and Applied Research (DARE) program at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, an integrated health care system with approximately 4.6 million members, 9500 physicians, and 21 medical centers.12, 13 The setting provides care for a racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse population which closely reflects the region’s underlying census population, including by insurance type (commercial, Medicare, etc.).14, 15
The DARE program16 provides personnel and funding to support clinicians in answering actionable, high priority questions to address evidence gaps and inform evidence-based changes in clinical care across all medical and surgical specialties. Each project is a collaboration between a clinical and a scientific co-principal investigator. Projects are identified, developed, and completed in consultation with medical group executives who lead clinical operations. The program utilizes evidence-based implementation methods17 throughout each project’s cycle.
Project Survey Targets and Content
During the study period of 2019–2021, there were 86 ongoing or completed DARE projects; all 48 projects completed during this interval were included for survey (Fig. 1). Surveys were fielded to each project’s lead scientific investigator and to regional operational and clinical leaders within the project’s specialty area, who were encouraged to forward it to other relevant leaders (Table 1). The goal was to understand the end-user’s knowledge of the project’s findings and to identify barriers and facilitators to next-step implementation by both project team leaders and the specialty’s end-users (i.e., clinical leaders). For each project, responses were considered “received” if there was at least one response for the project. Responses received were included for analyses if the results indicated a logical next step for implementation and if there were specific comments mappable to the framework domains (see below).
Table 1
Participant characteristics
| a n (%) | b n (%) |
Participant’s Clinical Title | | |
Clinician Investigator | 42 (51.9) | 32 (47.8) |
Regional Chair of Chiefs | 21 (25.9) | 17 (25.4) |
Associate Executive Director | 1 (1.2) | 1 (1.5) |
Other | 3 (3.7) | 3 (4.5) |
Dual (Clinician Investigator/Clinical Leader) | 5 (6.2) | 5 (7.5) |
No response | 9 (11.1) | 9 (13.4) |
Total | 81 | 67 |
a Survey respondents for eligible projects (45 projects were eligible for evaluation) |
b Survey respondents for evaluated projects (34 projects were evaluated) |
Potential participants received an emailed survey with fifteen structured quantitative and qualitative questions regarding the study’s perceived effectiveness, the dissemination of research findings, and facilitators or barriers that impacted potential operational implementation of findings for clinical change (Appendix A). Questions utilized plain language to minimize unfamiliar jargon and had separate queries for implementation facilitators and barriers. They incorporated both quantitative (using Likert scales) and open-ended response questions unconstrained, given the clinical audience, by unfamiliar constructs or terminology. Survey domains included: dissemination practices; target audiences and communication methods; specific clinical or operational changes informed by the project’s results; facilitators and barriers of translating the results to implementation; any additional perceived benefits of the project for the individual or specialty, such as development of investigative experience or career paths; and recommendations for program improvement, including for translating project research results to implementation.
The KPNC Research Determination Committee determined the project did not meet the regulatory definition of research involving human subjects requiring institutional board approval.
Analysis
The analysis aimed to (1) identify perceived project-specific facilitators and barriers of research implementation, (2) map concepts from participant’s comments to the CFIR constructs, and (3) identify facilitators and barriers common across multiple projects.18
CFIR is a widely accepted framework for assessing barriers and facilitators of implementation.7, 10, 19–26 Its creation involved reviews of several hundred publications across multiple scientific disciplines followed by the combination of different constructs into a single framework.26 The current project utilized the full core CFIR framework, without a recently proposed six-element addendum regarding anticipated vs. actual outcomes.22 The core framework includes five domains: innovation, outer setting, inner setting, individuals, and implementation process. These domains then divide into 26 constructs and, for three constructs with subconstructs, 15 sub-constructs (Appendix B).
Participant responses were downloaded into matrices, grouped by project. Three reviewers (CD, SP, and DAC) independently assessed qualitative survey responses for each project, mapped each response to the applicable CFIR domains, constructs, and sub-constructs, and designated each response as a potential barrier or a facilitator to the relevant constructs or sub-constructs. Compound comments that included both barrier and facilitator components could have each comment element assigned separately to a different category. Consistent with qualitative analytic methods,27, 28 initial assignments were then re-reviewed for consistency and, where there was discordance, discussed for final consensus assignment (CD and SP).
We used the SQUIRE checklist when writing our report [Ogrinc G, Davies L, Goodman D, Batalden P, Davidoff F, Stevens D. SQUIRE 2.0 (Standards for QUality Improvement Reporting Excellence): revised publication guidelines from a detailed consensus process.].