Accelerating knowledge uptake and sustainability – learning from the Leading Change Toolkit™

RNAO, in collaboration with Healthcare Excellence Canada, are excited to launch the new online Leading Change Toolkit. The toolkit is designed for change agents and change teams whose goal is to create lasting improvement with the uptake and sustainability of knowledge, like best practice guidelines (BPG).

What makes the toolkit revolutionary is the integration of two complementary frameworks to guide and support a change process:

• The novel Social Movement Action (SMA) Framework (Grinspun et al., 2020) – a dynamic approach to change that applies a grassroots, ‘bottom-up’ people-led action in response to an urgent shared concern or strongly desired change. The SMA Framework is structured according to preconditions, key characteristics and outcomes. The 10 key characteristics include collective identity, intrinsic motivation and mobilized individual and collective action as cornerstones of social movement action. The framework, based on a concept analysis, formalizes RNAO’s experience for the past 20 years as an association of social movement action to transform nursing, evidence-based practice, health system transformation and improved outcomes.
• The Knowledge-to-Action (KTA) Framework (Graham et al., 2006) – a structured, systematic process model that includes seven action-cycle phases. The KTA Framework is featured in the second edition of the Toolkit: Implementation of Best Practice Guidelines and has been used successfully by Best Practice Spotlight Organizations®(BPSO®) to achieve excellence in care outcomes, knowledge translation and sustained practice change. It builds on RNAO’s first implementation toolkit issued in 2002.

The Leading Change Toolkit is for you – it is available at no cost for everyone as a free download. It includes robust evidence, strategies, pragmatic and valid tools, worksheets and other resources to support your change initiative from start to sustainment. 

We invite you to join us on October 5th, 2021 from 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. ET for a virtual international webinar and launch of the Leading Change Toolkit. Register at The Leading Change Toolkit: National Webinar and Launch Registration (myrnao.ca).

The presentation will include members of the expert panel, including co-chairs Dr. Doris Grinspun and Dr. Janet Squires. Grinspun is CEO of RNAO and the founder of RNAO’s Best Practice Guidelines Program, including its BPSO social movement of knowledge mobilization. Squires is full professor, School of Nursing, University of Ottawa, Research Chair in Health Evidence Implementation, and senior scientist for the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.

You will also hear from members of the toolkit’s development team led by Katherine Wallace, Senior Manager, Implementation Science. And, you will hear Dr. Jennifer Zelmer, President and CEO, Healthcare Excellence Canada, as the Executive Co-Sponsor. The master of ceremony will be Susan McNeil, Associate Director, Guideline Implementation and Knowledge Transfer at RNAO’s International Affairs and Best Practice Guidelines (IABPG) Centre supported by Oliwia Klej, Project Coordinator, Implementation Science, IABPG.