Adaptation for sustainability in an implementation trial of team-based collaborative care

Implement Res Pract. 2024 Jan 23:5:26334895231226197. doi: 10.1177/26334895231226197. eCollection 2024 Jan-Dec.

Abstract

Background: Sustaining healthcare interventions once they have been implemented is a pivotal public health endeavor. Achieving sustainability requires context-sensitive adaptations to evidence-based practices (EBPs) or the implementation strategies used to ensure their adoption. For replicability of adaptations beyond the specific setting in question, the underlying logic needs to be clearly described, and adaptations themselves need to be plainly documented. The goal of this project was to describe the process by which implementation facilitation was adapted to improve the uptake of clinical care practices that are consistent with the collaborative chronic care model (CCM).

Method: Quantitative and qualitative data from a prior implementation trial found that CCM-consistent care practices were not fully sustained within outpatient general mental health teams that had received 1 year of implementation facilitation to support uptake. We undertook a multistep consensus process to identify adaptations to implementation facilitation based on these results, with the goal of enhancing the sustainability of CCM-based care in a subsequent trial. The logic for these adaptations, and the resulting adaptations themselves, were documented using two adaptation-oriented implementation frameworks (the iterative decision-making for evaluation of adaptations [IDEA] and the framework for reporting adaptations and modifications to evidence-based implementation strategies [FRAME-IS], respectively).

Results: Three adaptations emerged from this process and were documented using the FRAME-IS: (a) increasing the scope of implementation facilitation within the medical center, (b) having the internal facilitator take a greater role in the implementation process, and (c) shortening the implementation timeframe from 12 to 8 months, while increasing the intensity of facilitation support during that time.

Conclusions: EBP sustainability may require careful adaptation of EBPs or the implementation strategies used to get them into routine practice. Recently developed frameworks such as the IDEA and FRAME-IS may be used to guide decision-making and document resulting adaptations themselves. An ongoing funded study is investigating the utility of the resulting adaptations for improving healthcare.

Keywords: FRAME-IS‌; adaptation; collaborative care; sustainability; team-based care.

Plain language summary

Evidence-based treatments may not be sustained after they have been implemented in healthcare settings. To address this, treatments and implementation strategies may need to be adapted to fit the local context or the patient population. Maximizing the usefulness of such adaptations requires documenting the decision-making process. Understanding how an implementation strategy has been adapted for a given study or setting is crucial to ensuring that adaptations don’t compromise fidelity to the implementation strategy while enabling its replicability in similar settings. This article uses two adaptation frameworks to describe the process by which implementation facilitation, a common implementation strategy, was adapted to help establish and sustain effective mental health clinical teams in VA medical centers. It is our hope that our description of this process may help healthcare researchers, administrators, and policymakers to describe and document adaptations to implementation strategies in their own settings.