Publications by authors named "Virginia R Mckay"

Background: Recipients of solid organ transplants (SOTs) have unique risks for infections, but providers are often hesitant to apply the principles of antimicrobial stewardship to this patient population due to perceived excess risk. The methods of implementation science may move the field forward to simultaneously improve patient outcomes and patient safety.

Methods: Perspective piece on implementation science in SOT patients.

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Background: Pediatric early warning systems (PEWS) aid in the early identification of deterioration in hospitalized children with cancer; however, they are under-used in resource-limited settings. The authors use the knowledge-to-action framework to describe the implementation strategy for Proyecto Escala de Valoracion de Alerta Temprana (EVAT), a multicenter quality-improvement collaborative, to scale-up PEWS in pediatric oncology centers in Latin America.

Methods: Proyecto EVAT mentored participating centers through an adaptable implementation strategy to: (1) monitor clinical deterioration in children with cancer, (2) contextually adapt PEWS, (3) assess barriers to using PEWS, (4) pilot and implement PEWS, (5) monitor the use of PEWS, (6) evaluate outcomes, and (7) sustain PEWS.

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Background: Preventative health measures such as shelter in place and mask wearing have been widely encouraged to curb the spread of the COVID-19 disease. People's attitudes toward preventative behaviors may be dependent on their sources of information and trust in the information.

Objective: The aim of this study was to understand the relationship between trusting in COVID-19 information and preventative behaviors in a racially and politically diverse metropolitan area in the United States.

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Background: Adolescents bear a disproportionate burden of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and the sequelae of delayed treatment, yet STI screening is infrequently performed in pediatric primary care clinics with many of those at-risk not administered testing. This study aims to understand contextual factors influencing STI screening and testing among adolescents in pediatric primary care.

Methods: We used the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) as part of a stepwise approach to facilitate a deep understanding the pediatric primary care environment.

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Objectives: This study aimed to describe the process of adapting an evidence-based patient engagement intervention, enhanced medical rehabilitation (E-MR), for inpatient spinal cord injury/disease (SCI/D) rehabilitation using an implementation science framework.

Design: We applied the collaborative intervention planning framework and included a community advisory board (CAB) in an intervention mapping process.

Setting: A rehabilitation hospital.

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HIV represents a significant health burden in the United States. In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stopped recommending many once-promoted interventions as part of a shift from one HIV intervention policy, Diffusion of Effective Behavioral Interventions (DEBI), to another, High Impact Prevention (HIP). Twenty-nine staff members from 10 organizations were interviewed to explore how organizations reacted to this shift.

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Background: Reduction or elimination of inappropriate, ineffective, or potentially harmful healthcare services and public health programs can help to ensure limited resources are used effectively. Frameworks and models (FM) are valuable tools in conceptualizing and guiding the study of de-implementation. This scoping review sought to identify and characterize FM that can be used to study de-implementation as a phenomenon and identify gaps in the literature to inform future model development and application for research.

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This debate paper asserts that implementation science needs to incorporate a key concept from entrepreneurship-market demand-and demonstrates how assessing an innovation's potential market viability might advance the pace and success of innovation adoption and sustainment. We describe key concepts, language distinctions, and questions that entrepreneurs pose to implementation scientists-many of which implementation scientists appear ill-equipped to answer. The paper concludes with recommendations about how concepts from entrepreneurship, notably market viability assessment, can enhance the translation of research discoveries into real-world adoption, sustained use, and population health benefits.

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Dissemination and implementation (D&I) science is the practice of taking evidence-based interventions and sustainably incorporating them into routine clinical practice. As a relatively young field, D&I techniques are underutilized in cardiothoracic surgery. This review offers an overview of D&I science from the context of the cardiothoracic surgeon.

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Background: Understanding how to translate research discoveries into solutions for healthcare improvement is a priority of NIH-funded Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA). This study, supported by one CTSA, aims to capture one process of shaping and implementing innovations to advance the timeliness and patient-centeredness of cardiovascular care. Specifically, we sought to understand a partnership between a private digital health startup company, a university innovation lab, and an academic health system's cardiology program pursuing this goal.

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Growing evidence suggests that public health organizations continue to provide inefficient interventions even when better intervention options may be available. Factors informing an organization's decision to continue providing inefficient interventions are unclear. We present an analysis of HIV service organizations to understand factors influencing organizations to continue or end interventions.

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Background: Antibiotic-resistant infections have become a public health crisis that is driven by the inappropriate use of antibiotics. In the USA, antibiotic stewardship programs (ASP) have been established and are required by regulatory agencies to help combat the problem of antibiotic resistance. Post-operative antibiotic use in surgical cases deemed low-risk for infection is an area with significant overuse of antibiotics in children.

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Background: As more effective or efficient interventions emerge out of scientific advancement to address a particular public health issue, it may be appropriate to de-implement low-value interventions, or interventions that are less effective or efficient. Furthermore, factors that contribute to appropriate de-implementation are not well identified. We examined the extent to which low-value interventions were de-implemented among public health organizations providing HIV prevention services, as well as explored socio-economic, organizational, and intervention characteristics associated with de-implementation.

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The course of HIV research has led to a multitude of interventions to prevent and treat HIV. With the arrival of more effective interventions comes the need to end, or de-implement, less effective interventions. PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To describe the state of de-implementation research in HIV and provide a rationale for expanded research in this area.

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We performed a mixed-methods study to evaluate antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP) uptake and to assess variability of program implementation in Missouri hospitals. Despite increasing uptake of ASPs in Missouri, there is wide variability in both the scope and sophistication of these programs.

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Background: Overuse of antibiotics has caused secondary poor outcomes and has led to a current rate of antibiotic resistant infections that constitutes a public health crisis. In pediatric surgical specialties, children continue to receive unnecessary antibiotics.

Objective: To understand the factors that contribute to pediatric surgeons' decisions regarding the use of perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis.

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High-quality implementation of evidence-based interventions is important for program effectiveness and is influenced by training and quality assurance (QA). However, gaps in the literature contribute to a lack of guidance on training and supervision in practice settings, particularly when significant adaptations in programs occur. We examine training and QA in relationship to program fidelity among organizations delivering a widely disseminated HIV counseling and testing EBI in which significant adaptations occurred due to new testing technology.

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Dissemination and implementation science seeks generalizable knowledge about closing the gap between clinical discovery and actual use in routine practice and public health. The field of infectious diseases enjoys an abundance of highly efficacious interventions (eg, antimicrobial agents, human immunodeficiency virus treatment) which are not adequately used in routine care, thereby missing critical opportunities to improve population health. In this article, we summarize salient features of dissemination and implementation science, reviewing definitions and methodologies for infectious diseases clinicians and researchers.

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Introduction: Tobacco control policies focused on the retail environment have the potential to reduce tobacco use and tobacco-related health disparities through increasing direct and indirect costs. Recently, national and subnational governments have begun to restrict the sale of menthol products and reduce tobacco retailer density.

Methods: We developed an agent-based model to project the impact of menthol cigarette sales restrictions and retailer density reduction policies for six types of communities and three priority populations.

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The discontinuation of interventions that should be stopped, or de-implementation, has emerged as a novel line of inquiry within dissemination and implementation science. As this area grows in human services research, like public health and social work, theory is needed to help guide scientific endeavors. Given the infancy of de-implementation, this conceptual narrative provides a definition and criteria for determining if an intervention should be de-implemented.

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Background: Sustaining evidence-based interventions (EBIs) is an ongoing challenge for dissemination and implementation science in public health and social services. Characterizing the relationship among human resource capacity within an agency and subsequent population outcomes is an important step to improving our understanding of how EBIs are sustained. Although human resource capacity and population outcomes are theoretically related, examining them over time within real-world experiments is difficult.

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Evidence-based intervention (EBI) de-adoption and its influence on public health organizations are largely unexplored within public health implementation research. However, a recent shift in support for HIV prevention EBIs by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides an opportunity to explore EBI de-adoption. The current mixed-method study examines EBI de-adoption and the subsequent impact on a community-based organization (CBO) dedicated to HIV prevention.

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Evidence-based interventions (EBIs) often require competent staff, or human resources (HR), for implementation. The empirical evidence characterizing the influence of HR fluctuations on EBI delivery is limited and conflicting. Using the Interactive Systems Framework, we explored staff fluctuation and the subsequent influence on RESPECT, an HIV prevention EBI.

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