Infection Preventionists Play a Role in Implementation Science

Knowing that research drives practice, which then impacts patient outcomes, the infection prevention and healthcare epidemiology community is striving to improve its embrace of implementation science (defined by Eccles and Mittman as "the scientific study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of research findings and other evidence-based practices into routine practice"). Although federal agencies and professional societies have been churning out guidelines and standards for decades, practitioners have been struggling with what should inform daily practice and how the evidence should become accepted practice.