This guide is intended to support the implementation of innovations into common practice, taking into account contextual barriers, resource constraints, and the diversity of clinical settings. It offers practical guidelines for adapting an innovation to make it acceptable, feasible, and useful within a specific organizational and clinical context.
Definitions: Adaptation and Implementation
Adaptation: a deliberate modification of an innovation to ensure that it aligns with the requirements and priorities of the clinical context.
Implementation: the introduction and integration of an innovation into clinical practice.
Please note that the guide includes a glossary to complete these definitions.
- Health and Social Services Professionals
- Decision-Makers
- Medical clinics or family medicine groups
- Clinical Coordination Managers
This interactive guide provides a clear roadmap to help users confidently incorporate innovations into their daily practice. It helps them select the most appropriate strategies for adapting these innovations to their clinical context.
It promotes informed planning by outlining the resources, roles, and timelines essential to successful implementation. The guide also includes tools designed to support the implementation process, assist leaders, track progress, and assess the extent to which the implementation is achieving the intended results and objectives.
This interactive guide is organized around five key steps
- Prepare to Implement an Innovation
- Assess the needs and resources ot the clinical setting
- Select strategies to adapt the innovation
- Adapt the intervention
- Implement and evaluate the adapted innovation
Each step includes additional tools and resources.
Context: A family medicine clinic wants to implement a physical activity counseling and support program to increase the level of physical activity among patients at risk for cardiovascular disease.
How to Use This Guide
Following the five-step guide, a multidisciplinary team composed of family physicians, nurses, clinical managers, and administrative staff meets regularly to adapt the intervention while minimizing disruptions to daily operations. The intervention is now better integrated into the clinic’s existing work processes, staffing, and referral resources. Family physicians now receive clear guidelines for implementing the intervention during their consultations with patients.
Impact
The clinic has observed a standardization of counseling and referral practices. Patients now receive structured support during their routine appointments with their family doctor and feel more supported in their efforts to increase their level of physical activity.
- Karen Wassef, Ph.D. student
- Dorsa Salimi, Research Assistant
- Tibor Schuster, Associate Professor
- Paula Bush, Associate Professor
- Tracie Barnett, Associate Professor
Wassef, K., Salimi, D., Schuster, T., Bush, P.L., Barnett, T.A. (2026). A guide to implementing an innovation in a clinical setting. [Interactive presentation]. Genially. https://view.genially.com/6970d3d670c106e0056fc192