Implementation science is fundamentally concerned with identifying effective strategies for implementing evidence-based interventions. Therefore it is critical to understand the difference in what is meant by implementation strategies and evidence based interventions.
Implementation strategies are the actions taken to enhance adoption, implementation, and sustainability of evidence based interventions.
Evidence based interventions are programs, practices, principles, procedures, products, pills, or policies that have been demonstrated to improve health behaviors, health outcomes, or health-related environments.
Evidence based interventions are the what that is being implemented. Implementation strategies are how we seek to get evidence based interventions into normal practice in clinical or community settings. This distinction between “what” and “how” is useful for distinguishing implementation strategies from evidence based interventions.
For an in-depth explanation of implementation strategies, read Kirchner and colleagues' excellent introduction in Psychiatry Research (2019).
