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Editorial
April 2015

Implementation Science in Pediatric Health Care: Advances and Opportunities

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
  • 2Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
  • 3Centre for Healthcare Innovation, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
  • 4Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
JAMA Pediatr. 2015;169(4):307-309. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.8

If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.

Kurt Lewin

This issue of JAMA Pediatrics represents a special focus on implementation science in pediatric health care. Implementation science refers to the study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of clinical research findings into routine practice.1 It is described in a multitude of ways around the world (knowledge translation, transfer, mobilization, exchange, dissemination),2 but ultimately all terms share a similar goal: to close persistent knowledge-to-practice gaps in health care and decision making in an effort to improve outcomes. Real-world uptake of evidence-based practices is essential in pediatric health care to ensure children everywhere benefit from effective treatments, such as the use of glucocorticoids for children with croup that has resulted in a substantial and important decrease in hospitalization for this condition.3

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