I hope the title did not lose you. Knowledge translation represents the missing link between publication and practice change. The case for knowledge translation: shortening the journey from evidence to effect and From publicatin to change
Since knowledge translation focuses on health outcomes and changing behaviour, it is set in the site of practice and its social, organisational, and policy environment rather than in learning situations. Furthermore, it identifies best evidence and pathways that make it easier for the target individual or group to follow this evidence. The production of these aids to knowledge translation, called tools or toolkits, is commonplace.
Thus, the authors make the case that we need to study methods for translating knowledge into practice. Identifying suboptimal practice no longer should interest us. We know that many new findings are not quickly translated into practice.
Knowledge translation uses a wide range of methods to achieve change. It’s set in practice rather than lecture theatres and uses prompts and various information tools. Rather than being aimed at individual doctors it’s aimed at teams, health systems, populations, and policy makers. One of the most interesting differences from traditional continuing medical education is that knowledge translation is aimed at patients as well as doctors. Patients may be more enthusiastic about change than their doctors, and the patient may cause the doctor to change.
As I have implied previously, our research group focuses on methods for knowledge translation. Contrary to the above quote, we have had success aiming at individual physicians also. For outpatient practice, one must develop methods for working with individual physicians.
This field represents the action. We need to continue to understand the barriers to change, and then learn how to overcome those barriers. We should not berate physicians nor should we criticize their practices. Rather we (the medical education community and specifically the continuing professional development community) must strive to achieve improvement. The issues are too complex for most individual physicians to have complete success on their own.
