skip to page content
Talk to the Veterans Crisis Line now
U.S. flag
An official website of the United States government

Quality Enhancement Research Initiative

Implementation Facilitation Tools & Resources

Supporting providers in delivering high quality care to patients

With the rapidly expanding body of biomedical research, changing clinical guidelines and recommendations, and emergence of novel technologies, frontline providers are navigating an untenable number of changes to ensure healthcare consumers receive the best possible care. A proactive, systematic approach is critical to support clinicians and medical facilities in providing evidence-based care.

Implementation facilitation (IF) is a multi-faceted process of enabling and supporting individuals, groups, and organizations in their efforts to adopt and incorporate evidence-based practices into routine care. The tools and resources described on this page can help providers and IF practitioners learn about and apply this strategy.

I. Implementation Facilitation Training Manual

Using Implementation Facilitation to Improve Healthcare Implementation Facilitation Training Manual (Version 3) is a comprehensive resource for individuals seeking to apply implementation facilitation to enhance the uptake of evidence-based practices in their organization.

Pearls of the Implementation Facilitation Manual:

  • Incorporates implementation science and clinical operations expertise
  • Provides practical recommendations for improving the uptake of evidence-based practices by targeting barriers at both the provider and organizational levels
  • Reflects the latest IF research and theory and the real-world experiences of IF experts

We invite you to provide us with feedback and resources that may be helpful to others who are embarking on this journey! Please contact Katherine Dollar (Katherine.Dollar@va.gov) with any comments and/or materials.

Suggested citation:

Ritchie MJ, Dollar KM, Miller CJ, Smith JL, Oliver KA, Kim B, Connolly, SL, Woodward E, Ochoa-Olmos T, Day S, Lindsay JA, Kirchner JE. Using Implementation Facilitation to Improve Healthcare (Version 3). Veterans Health Administration, Behavioral Health Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI), 2020. Available at: https://www.queri.research.va.gov/tools/Facilitation-Manual.pdf.

II. Key Steps in Implementation Facilitation

The purpose of this addendum to the Implementation Facilitation Training Manual is to convey concise, high-level information about the process for applying an implementation facilitation strategy. It presents a list of key steps associated with most implementation facilitation efforts and builds upon information provided in the manual. This document provides specific locations in the Training Manual where users can find additional information about each of the key steps.

III. Implementation Facilitation Literature Collection

** This section is currently under construction.

Identifying relevant literature about a complex topic can be challenging and time consuming. Using rigorous, systematic methods, we are creating a comprehensive collection of literature about implementation facilitation as a strategy for supporting the adoption, routine use, and sustainment of clinical innovations for improving healthcare delivery and outcomes. The literature collection will consist of peer-reviewed articles, including research studies (e.g., RCTs, hybrid effectiveness-implementation trials), examples of large-scale clinical initiatives, literature reviews, and conceptual/theoretical articles. The collection will be useful to healthcare providers and IF practitioners seeking to understand IF and how it has been applied in research studies and clinical initiatives to implement evidence-based practices and other clinical innovations. The collection will also be useful to researchers seeking to: (a) understand conceptual/theoretical frameworks and models that have been used to guide use of IF strategies, (b) apply and evaluate the impact of IF strategies in their own research, and/or (c) synthesize findings or lessons learned across multiple studies. When complete, the literature collection will be available as a list of articles and as an xml file for download from this site.