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Identifying and ranking implicit leadership strategies to promote evidence-based practice implementation in addiction health services.

ABSTRACT: Despite a solid research base supporting evidence-based practices (EBPs) for addiction treatment such as contingency management and medication-assisted treatment, these services are rarely implemented and delivered in community-based addiction treatment programs in the USA. As a result, many clients do not benefit from the most current and efficacious treatments, resulting in reduced quality of care and compromised treatment outcomes. Previous research indicates that addiction program leaders play a key role in supporting EBP adoption and use. The present study expanded on this previous work to identify strategies that addiction treatment program leaders report using to implement new practices.We relied on a staged and iterative mixed-methods approach to achieve the following four goals: (a) collect data using focus groups and semistructured interviews and conduct analyses to identify implicit managerial strategies for implementation, (b) use surveys to quantitatively rank strategy effectiveness, (c) determine how strategies fit with existing theories of organizational management and change, and (d) use a consensus group to corroborate and expand on the results of the previous three stages. Each goal corresponded to a methodological phase, which included data collection and analytic approaches to identify and evaluate leadership interventions that facilitate EBP implementation in community-based addiction treatment programs.Findings show that the top-ranked strategies involved the recruitment and selection of staff members receptive to change, offering support and requesting feedback during the implementation process, and offering in vivo and hands-on training. Most strategies corresponded to emergent implementation leadership approaches that also utilize principles of transformational and transactional leadership styles. Leadership behaviors represented orientations such as being proactive to respond to implementation needs, supportive to assist staff members during the uptake of new practices, knowledgeable to properly guide the implementation process, and perseverant to address ongoing barriers that are likely to stall implementation efforts.These findings emphasize how leadership approaches are leveraged to facilitate the implementation and delivery of EBPs in publicly funded addiction treatment programs. Findings have implications for the content and structure of leadership interventions needed in community-based addiction treatment programs and the development of leadership interventions in these and other service settings.

SUBMITTER: Guerrero EG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4894378 | biostudies-other | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Project description:BackgroundEffective leadership for organizational change is critical to the implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs). As organizational leaders in behavioral health organizations often are promoted from within the agency for their long-standing, effective work as counselors, they may lack formal training in leadership, management, or practice change. This study assesses a novel implementation leadership training designed to promote leadership skills and successful organizational change specific to EBP implementation.MethodsWe conducted a pre-post outcome evaluation of the Training in Implementation Practice Leadership (TRIPLE), delivered via three in-person, half-day training sessions, with interim coaching and technical support. Sixteen mid-level leaders (75% female, 94% Caucasian, mean age 37?years) from 8 substance abuse treatment agencies participated. Professional roles included clinical managers, quality improvement coordinators, and program directors. Participants completed surveys prior to the first and following the final session. At both time points, measures included the Implementation Leadership Scale, Implementation Climate Scale, and Organizational Readiness for Implementing Change Scale. At post-test, we added the Training Acceptability and Appropriateness Scale (TAAS), assessing participant satisfaction with the training. Qualitative interviews were conducted 6 to 8 months after the training.ResultsMost participants (86% and 79%, respectively) reported increased implementation leadership skills and implementation climate; paired samples t tests indicated these pre-post increases were statistically significant. Implementation leadership scores improved most markedly on the Proactive and Knowledgeable subscales. For implementation climate, participants reported the greatest increases in educational support and recognition for using EBP. Post-test scores on the TAAS also indicated that participants found the training program to be highly acceptable and appropriate for their needs. Qualitative results supported positive outcomes of training that resulted in both increased organizational implementation as well as leadership skills of participants.ConclusionsThis training program represents an innovative, effective, and well-received implementation strategy for emerging behavioral healthcare leaders seeking to adopt or improve the delivery of EBPs. Reported implementation leadership skills and implementation climate improved following the training program, suggesting that TRIPLE may have helped fulfill a critical need for emerging behavioral healthcare leaders.

Project description:BackgroundIn healthcare and allied healthcare settings, leadership that supports effective implementation of evidenced-based practices (EBPs) is a critical concern. However, there are no empirically validated measures to assess implementation leadership. This paper describes the development, factor structure, and initial reliability and convergent and discriminant validity of a very brief measure of implementation leadership: the Implementation Leadership Scale (ILS).MethodsParticipants were 459 mental health clinicians working in 93 different outpatient mental health programs in Southern California, USA. Initial item development was supported as part of a two United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) studies focused on developing implementation leadership training and implementation measure development. Clinician work group/team-level data were randomly assigned to be utilized for an exploratory factor analysis (n?=?229; k?=?46 teams) or for a confirmatory factor analysis (n?=?230; k?=?47 teams). The confirmatory factor analysis controlled for the multilevel, nested data structure. Reliability and validity analyses were then conducted with the full sample.ResultsThe exploratory factor analysis resulted in a 12-item scale with four subscales representing proactive leadership, knowledgeable leadership, supportive leadership, and perseverant leadership. Confirmatory factor analysis supported an a priori higher order factor structure with subscales contributing to a single higher order implementation leadership factor. The scale demonstrated excellent internal consistency reliability as well as convergent and discriminant validity.ConclusionsThe ILS is a brief and efficient measure of unit level leadership for EBP implementation. The availability of the ILS will allow researchers to assess strategic leadership for implementation in order to advance understanding of leadership as a predictor of organizational context for implementation. The ILS also holds promise as a tool for leader and organizational development to improve EBP implementation.

Project description:BackgroundMany interventions found to be effective in health services research studies fail to translate into meaningful patient care outcomes across multiple contexts. Health services researchers recognize the need to evaluate not only summative outcomes but also formative outcomes to assess the extent to which implementation is effective in a specific setting, prolongs sustainability, and promotes dissemination into other settings. Many implementation theories have been published to help promote effective implementation. However, they overlap considerably in the constructs included in individual theories, and a comparison of theories reveals that each is missing important constructs included in other theories. In addition, terminology and definitions are not consistent across theories. We describe the Consolidated Framework For Implementation Research (CFIR) that offers an overarching typology to promote implementation theory development and verification about what works where and why across multiple contexts.MethodsWe used a snowball sampling approach to identify published theories that were evaluated to identify constructs based on strength of conceptual or empirical support for influence on implementation, consistency in definitions, alignment with our own findings, and potential for measurement. We combined constructs across published theories that had different labels but were redundant or overlapping in definition, and we parsed apart constructs that conflated underlying concepts.ResultsThe CFIR is composed of five major domains: intervention characteristics, outer setting, inner setting, characteristics of the individuals involved, and the process of implementation. Eight constructs were identified related to the intervention (e.g., evidence strength and quality), four constructs were identified related to outer setting (e.g., patient needs and resources), 12 constructs were identified related to inner setting (e.g., culture, leadership engagement), five constructs were identified related to individual characteristics, and eight constructs were identified related to process (e.g., plan, evaluate, and reflect). We present explicit definitions for each construct.ConclusionThe CFIR provides a pragmatic structure for approaching complex, interacting, multi-level, and transient states of constructs in the real world by embracing, consolidating, and unifying key constructs from published implementation theories. It can be used to guide formative evaluations and build the implementation knowledge base across multiple studies and settings.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Implementation theory suggests that first-level leaders, sometimes referred to as middle managers, can increase clinicians' use of evidence-based practice (EBP) in healthcare settings by enacting specific leadership behaviors (i.e., proactive, knowledgeable, supportive, perseverant with regard to implementation) that develop an EBP implementation climate within the organization; however, longitudinal and quasi-experimental studies are needed to test this hypothesis. METHODS:Using data collected at three waves over a 5-year period from a panel of 30 outpatient children's mental health clinics employing 496 clinicians, we conducted a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences study to test whether within-organization change in implementation leadership predicted within-organization change in EBP implementation climate, and whether change in EBP implementation climate predicted within-organization change in clinicians' use of EBP. At each wave, clinicians reported on their first-level leaders' implementation leadership, their organization's EBP implementation climate, and their use of both EBP and non-EBP psychotherapy techniques for childhood psychiatric disorders. Hypotheses were tested using econometric two-way fixed effects regression models at the organization level which controlled for all stable organizational characteristics, population trends in the outcomes over time, and time-varying covariates. RESULTS:Organizations that improved from low to high levels of implementation leadership experienced significantly greater increases in their level of EBP implementation climate (d?=?.92, p?=?.017) and within-organization increases in implementation leadership accounted for 11% of the variance in improvement in EBP implementation climate beyond all other covariates. In turn, organizations that improved from low to high levels of EBP implementation climate experienced significantly greater increases in their clinicians' average EBP use (d?=?.55, p?=?.007) and within-organization improvement in EBP implementation climate accounted for 14% of the variance in increased clinician EBP use. Mediation analyses indicated that improvement in implementation leadership had a significant indirect effect on clinicians' EBP use via improvement in EBP implementation climate (d?=?.26, 95% CI [.02 to .59]). CONCLUSIONS:When first-level leaders increase their frequency of implementation leadership behaviors, organizational EBP implementation climate improves, which in turn contributes to increased EBP use by clinicians. Trials are needed to test strategies that target this implementation leadership-EBP implementation climate mechanism.

Project description:Leadership is a key feature in implementation efforts, which is highlighted in most implementation frameworks. However, in studying leadership and implementation, only few studies rely on established leadership theory, which makes it difficult to draw conclusions regarding what kinds of leadership managers should perform and under what circumstances. In industrial and organizational psychology, transformational leadership and contingent reward have been identified as effective leadership styles for facilitating change processes, and these styles map well onto the behaviors identified in implementation research. However, it has been questioned whether these general leadership styles are sufficient to foster specific results; it has therefore been suggested that the leadership should be specific to the domain of interest, e.g., implementation. To this end, an intervention specifically involving leadership, which we call implementation leadership, is developed and tested in this project. The aim of the intervention is to increase healthcare managers' generic implementation leadership skills, which they can use for any implementation efforts in the future.The intervention is conducted in healthcare in Stockholm County, Sweden, where first- and second-line managers were invited to participate. Two intervention groups are included, including 52 managers. Intervention group 1 consists of individual managers, and group 2 of managers from one division. A control group of 39 managers is additionally included. The intervention consists of five half-day workshops aiming at increasing the managers' implementation leadership, which is the primary outcome of this intervention. The intervention will be evaluated through a mixed-methods approach. A pre- and post-design applying questionnaires at three time points (pre-, directly after the intervention, and 6 months post-intervention) will be used, in addition to process evaluation questionnaires related to each workshop. In addition, interviews will be conducted over time to evaluate the intervention.The proposed intervention represents a novel contribution to the implementation literature, being the first to focus on strengthening healthcare managers' generic skills in implementation leadership.

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Identifying and ranking implicit leadership strategies to promote evidence-based practice implementation in addiction health services.

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