Moira Inkelas, PhD, MPH, presenting “Implementation and Improvement Science”

Date: Monday, May 20, 2024

Dr. Moira Inkelas, PhD, MPH is professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management. She has a background in public health and public policy, with specific training and expertise in designing and implementing improvement science research. Her research focuses on improvement in primary care and human service organizations, and she has led learning networks of national and local healthcare providers and systems.  As Co-Program Leader for Population Health at the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), she supports education and career development in Implementation, Improvement, and Dissemination (DII) and learning health system methods.

About the session: Translational scientists are interested in seeing effective changes fully implemented and sustained over time. Potential interventions progress through different stages of degree of belief regarding their impact. Different terminology in the traditions involved at each stage can lead to confusion about the questions being asked and the methods employed. We will discuss the origins of implementation science and common applications in health services research to study how context affects uptake and sustainability of interventions. We will also discuss the origins and theory underlying improvement science and their application to learning what works at the scale of a system.