Perhaps the very best question to ask yourself in writing the dissemination and implementation potential section of your research proposal is simply, “In a perfect world, what am I trying achieve?” Are you providing a new option, asking people to change their behaviors, giving a series of lectures to educate to change a way of thinking? Because each project is different, each dissemination strategy will be unique to your project but could include educational outreach, decision-support systems, interventions or incentives.
- Identify a group of people to help you drive the implementation and dissemination process.
- Consider your key stakeholders in this process, including various managers, service line directors, professional directors and chiefs.
- Choose a leader for dissemination, someone with enough authority to truly make a change when it becomes required; this could be the Principal investigator or another more senior ranking member of your team.
- Ensure that you have someone on your team with the technical experience to help with the dissemination plan and who is enthusiastic about making this change.
- Describe the potential for disseminating and implementing the results of this research.
- Provide evidence defining the difference between the local and national situation surrounding your founding need. Fully analyze the difference between the current project within your own institute, and the broader dissemination in your goals, i.e. local vs. national or international.
- Share your colleagues’ opinions and describe the support and openness of all involved towards change relative to improving this particular health outcome or changing this aspect of clinical practice.
- Many dissemination and implementation plans will affect not only team members but also a wide range of cultural, organizational, systematic, educational, interpersonal, and individual factors that you need to account for in this section. Think carefully about:
- Patients or consumers
- Legislative decision-makers
- Administrative decision-makers
- Clinical decision-makers
- Industrial decision-makers
- Describe possible barriers to disseminating and implementing the results of this research in other settings.
- Barriers can be overcome and you should not avoid them! Addressing the potential issues shows reviewers that you have fully thought through the dissemination plans.
- Barriers can occur at several levels and within different target groups, consider:
- Systematic, professional, community and consumer levels
- Surgeon, clinician, administrator, nurse, patient levels
- Examples of barriers:
- A habit, unwillingness to act, or resentment
- Lack of knowledge, or under-reported problems
- Time pressures
- Other conflicts
