Issue Briefs
Date of this Version
5-21-2020
Abstract
Changing clinical practice is hard, and changing practices within larger organizations is even harder. Increasingly, policymakers are looking to implementation science—the study of why some changes prove more durable than others—to understand the dynamics of successful transformation. In this brief, we summarize the results of an ongoing community-academicpartnership to increase the uptake of evidence-based practices in Philadelphia’s public behavioral health care system. Over five years, researchers found that widescale initiatives did successfully change the way care was delivered, albeit modestly and slowly. The evidence suggests that organizational factors, such as a proficient work culture, are more important than individual therapist factors, like openness in change, in influencing successful practice change. Furthermore, organizations must address staff turnover and burnout, and employees must feel supported in general in order for managers to expect them to change. In short, while practice transformation is possible—even in highly stressed and under-resourced public health settings—it requires focusing on underlying problems within organizations as well as championing new policies.
Document Type
Brief
Volume
23
Number
5
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Keywords
"mental health, evidence-based practice, implementation science, behavioral health"
Included in
Behavioral Medicine Commons, Clinical Psychology Commons, Health Services Administration Commons, Health Services Research Commons
Date Posted: 15 June 2020