Practice-based evidence for children and adolescents: Advancing the research agenda in schools.

The American Psychological Association Task Force on Evidence- Based Practice for Children and Adolescents (2008) recommended a systems approach to enhancing care in order to improve outcomes for children and adolescents with mental health needs and redress persistent systemic problems with the structure of services. Recommendations for enhancing an ecological approach to the adoption and implementation of evidence-based practices are offered through increased attention to practice-based research frameworks for adoption and dissemination. Five criteria are discussed for providing acceptable evidence, including (a) systematic evidence searching and adoption of evidence-based prevention and intervention practices, (b) implementation and adherence to intervention integrity, (c) invoking standards for drawing inferences from interventions, (d) using quality assessments to measure outcomes, and (e) adopting formal data analysis procedures to assess intervention outcomes. Each criterion is illustrated with an example. Future research and policy agendas are outlined.Psycholog

Integrating Science and Engineering to Implement Evidence-Based Practices in Health Care Settings

Integrating two distinct and complementary paradigms, science and engineering, may produce more effective outcomes for the implementation of evidence-based practices in health care settings. Science formalizes and tests innovations, whereas engineering customizes and optimizes how the innovation is applied tailoring to accommodate local conditions. Together they may accelerate the creation of an evidence-based healthcare system that works effectively in specific health care settings. We give examples of applying engineering methods for better quality, more efficient, and safer implementation of clinical practices, medical devices, and health services systems. A specific example was applying systems engineering design that orchestrated people, process, data, decision-making, and communication through a technology application to implement evidence-based depression care among low-income patients with diabetes. We recommend that leading journals recognize the fundamental role of engineering in implementation research, to improve understanding of design elements that create a better fit between program elements and local context

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Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited. Correspondence to: Kimberly Eaton Hoagwood