Implementation Science for Emergency Physicians: A Schematic Diagram and Step-By-Step Guidance to Implement Evidence-Based Innovations

Emergency physicians are pivotal in ensuring that patients seeking urgent medical care for various illnesses receive evidence-based care. However, there can be variable adherence to evidence-based care on the individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels. Emergency medicine settings may benefit from using implementation science theories, models, and frameworks to introduce new guidelines and recommendations to increase adherence and uptake of evidence-based protocols. At the same time, implementation science applications must consider the unique context of the emergency medicine setting. The authors of this paper are a multidisciplinary group of emergency physicians, behavioral researchers, and implementation scientists, who identified a need for emergency physicians to have practical implementation guidance. During a 3-day implementation science workshop, authors collaboratively developed a schematic diagram, a step-by-step guide, and a case example, presented here, to guide the implementation of evidence-based practices in the emergency department. In summary, this paper aims to make knowledge translation accessible to emergency physicians by presenting a resource for practical implementation science applications.