Approximately 78% of the healthcare workforce are comprised of nurses who are key drivers in quality improvement (QI) and evidence-based practice (EBP).

The Thing is any new evidence-based intervention, innovation, or practice (Curran, 2023). Clinical research determines whether The Thing works, but translating The Thing into practice change is a complex process that requires its own frameworks and tools. Implementation science offers nurses, multidisciplinary teams, and organizations a range of evidence-backed theories and methods to guide the integration of The Thing into practice (Tucker, et al., 2021). Essentially, implementation science captures how well The Thing is being performed and identifies ways to help our community and organization finally do The Thing (Curran, 2023).

Implementation science systematically evaluates how clinicians adapt and incorporate evidence-based care in a select setting (Bauer & Kirschner, 2020; Boehm et al., 2023; Roberts, Young & Duff. 2023). The purpose of implementation science is to develop evidence-based strategies to mitigate challenges that often arise during the uptake of new EBP, helping to identify barriers, enablers, and/or facilitators across the multidisciplinary team and at multiple levels within the organization. Implementation science employs various theoretical approaches to achieve these goals, including: (1) process models, which describe how to translate new evidence into practice; (2) determinant theories, which help explain components that affect the implementation process; and (3) evaluation frameworks that assess how the implementation is going (Boehm et al., 2023; Roberts, Young & Duff. 2023; Tucker, et al., 2021). Implementation science further applies these models to develop implementation strategies to assist with the barriers by changing individual or unit behavior (Bauer & Kirchner, 2020).

Our goal should always be to utilize EBP and QI to elevate the quality and safety of patient care; therefore, it is just as vital for us to plan and evaluate the process of translating the intervention into our practice as it is to determine whether the intervention is clinically effective in the first place. Implementation scientists warn of the development of a “secondary gap,” whereby clinicians “recognize the evidence that needs to be implemented into practice yet neglect evidence regarding optimal approaches for the actual implementation of that practice change” (Tucker, et al., 2021, p. 77). Facilitators, nurse leaders, and stakeholders are needed to assist with barriers such as time constraints and resources so nurses and nurse scientists can transform knowledge into action (Boehm et al., 2020; Roberts, Young & Duff. 2023). Fortunately, we have the resources and accessible tools needed to be successful in implementation science and do The Thing!