Implementation Science and You


Last May, I was chatting with a friend (Dr. L) about the photos of her garden I had seen posted on social media. To say her garden looked amazing would be an understatement. It was green and lush and full of herbs and vegetables and fruits that even through a screen looked delicious enough to eat. So, I asked her how she made that happen.
Her: I got a gardening coach.
Me: A gardening coach?
Her: Yes, a gardening coach. I told her I had been trying for years to get a garden going and it just kept failing. So, she came out to the house to see my garden, and she told me I was planting on the wrong side of the house.
Me: The wrong side of the house?
Her: Yes! Apparently, I was trying to build my garden on a side that got too much sunlight for too many hours a day, and it was killing anything I tried to plant. So, we moved everything to the other side of my house.
Me: Was that it?
Her: No. Then I told her what I had been planting and she started to tell me what to plant and when to plant it, what not to plant, and all of that. Well, and the rest is history.
This story about my friend seems a fitting metaphor for implementation and understanding the science behind it. The steps Dr. L took to create a beautiful, flourishing garden remind me of the four stages the National Implementation Research Network has identified for the process of implementing a new program or change to an established practice—exploration, installation, initial implementation, and full implementation.1

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- National Implementation Research Network (2020). Implementation stages planning tool. Chapel Hill, NC: National Implementation Research Network, FPG Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill