Bridging the research–practice gap in infant neuromotor development by harnessing principles from implementation science

The well-documented research–practice gap in healthcare typically results in an average delay of 17 years between evidence discovery and clinical care integration. This perspective article describes the application of implementation science methods to operationalize new clinical-research concepts into a scalable early physical therapy intervention supporting infant neuromotor development. Through flexible dosage delivery, adaptation of existing resources, structured stakeholder review, standardized training protocols, and systematic fidelity monitoring, we created this intervention for efficient dissemination and uptake. Using a case example, we also demonstrate effective implementation of our clinical-research concepts and suggest that the use of these specific processes of embedding implementation science tenets within trial design may help narrow the research–practice gap across disciplines.