Considering the How with the What: Implementation fidelity to foster success

Lisa Saldana, Ph.D.
Oregon Social Learning Center

ABSTRACT:
Previous research has focused on developing and testing the 8-staged Stages of Implementation Completion (SIC)—an observational tool of implementation progress from Engagement (Stage 1) to development of Competency (Stage 8). The SIC provides a unique and rich source of real-world activities conducted by sites attempting to implement an EBP, and an assessment of inner and outer context variables of the sites. The SIC maps onto three phases of implementation (pre-implementation, implementation, and sustainability), and was developed as part of an implementation trial to assess sites' implementation process behavior and obtainment of milestones. Recent advances with the SIC suggest its potential utility as a measure of implementation fidelity; the SIC can reliably predict successful program start-up and achievement of program competency for sustainment based on both the quality and quantity of implementation activity completion.  This presentation will describe recent updates to SIC analyses, and the potential of the SIC to serve as a measure of implementation fidelity, across the span of implementation from Engagement to achievement of Competency in program delivery. Just as achieving high treatment fidelity is important to achieve successful clinical outcomes, this presentation will describe the value of achieving high implementation fidelity for successful implementation outcomes (e.g., sustainability).