RNAO launches new, evidence-based online implementation toolkit in partnership with Healthcare Excellence Canada

Maintaining its commitment to advancing evidence -based care and health care, the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) has partnered with Healthcare Excellence Canada (HEC) to release its third edition of the Leading Change ToolkitTM.

The Leading Change Toolkit is a free online implementation resource that provides change agents – persons developing knowledge and skills to make a positive difference – and change teams with up-to-date evidence, tools and strategies to lead change across health sectors and settings. Change teams may include interprofessional practitioners, persons/patients and their families, administrators, students, educators, as well as other staff or volunteers in organizations and across integrated teams.

This dynamic, freely accessible resource replaces RNAO’s 2012 toolkit and features two complementary frameworks to support the uptake and sustainability of evidence:

• Social Movement Action (SMA) framework (Grinspun et al., 2020) – a new framework that integrates social movement action to create lasting change for improvement
• Knowledge-to-Action (KTA) framework (Graham et al., 2006) – a dynamic systematic and structured process model

RNAO and HEC will launch the toolkit during a national webinar on Tuesday, Oct. 5. All health-care professionals and educators interested in facilitating and promoting sustainable change are encouraged to attend. The webinar will introduce the toolkit and its features, as well as provide an overview of how to use it to mobilize change.

“The Leading Change Toolkit is a groundbreaking online resource that will revolutionize how health-care professionals and teams implement best practices within their organization,” says Dr. Doris Grinspun, RNAO CEO and co-chair of the toolkit’s expert panel. Adding that “the two complementary frameworks set change agents and teams up for success, which will improve quality of care and health outcomes for all.”

“As a living resource, the toolkit will be updated regularly to embrace innovations in the field of implementation science aimed at facilitating social movements of knowledge to action, ensuring evidence-among health teams in different sectors reaches every staff and every patient on every encounter,” says Dr. Janet Squires, expert panel co-chair of the Leading Change Toolkit.

“Shaping a future where everyone in Canada has safe and high-quality health care is in our collective interest,” says Dr. Jennifer Zelmer, president and CEO of HEC. “Through resources like this toolkit, people who share this commitment to change will be better equipped to drive the rapid adoption of quality and safety innovations across the country.”

For more information on the Leading Change Toolkit, please visit RNAO’s website.