Transforming research into practice

The AO Knowledge Translation Committee, supported by AO innovation funding, is aiming to accelerate the uptake of AO-generated knowledge.

Researchers have found that, on average, it takes 15-17 years for new scientific findings in the medical realm to be adopted into clinical practice. Intending to close this unacceptably large gap, the concept of Knowledge Translation focuses on accelerating this process. Thanks to its strong footing in research, education, community, and the regions, the AO is in a unique position to get at the forefront of Knowledge Translation. The AO Spine Knowledge Translation Steering Committee has been designing an AO-tailored Knowledge Translation framework aiming to accelerate the uptake of AO-generated knowledge and thus speed up the improvement of patient outcomes.

Within the 36-month project supported by AO innovation funding, the Knowledge Translation Steering Committee has recently identified two AO Spine pilot projects for which the AO-tailored Knowledge Translation framework will be implemented. If proven effective, the framework will be phased in cross-divisionally and become an essential part of clinical research project development.

The committee has already succeeded in bringing the different infrastructures at the AO—AO Spine education, research, and community development—together to emphasize the uptake and dissemination of research. “Our initial aim was to have the Education and Research Commissions fully collaborate on this, and then with proof of concept bring in the Community Development commission,” said Charles Fisher, Chairperson of the Knowledge Translation Steering Committee. “Knowledge translation is so much more than educating clinicians about the newest research. It involves an ongoing interaction between community development, education, and research—and it’s different in every region; so the regions themselves also play an integral role.”

Regional differences are an important factor in integrating research evidence into clinical practice, but by far not the only one, Fisher explained. “The biggest challenge comes with the different practice settings. There are differences not only between regions, but also between whether clinicians practice alone or in a group, whether they get their information online or read journals, how far along in their career they are, whether they go to meetings, and so on. Additionally, a new technique might require new equipment or additional resources. All these issues make it difficult to translate knowledge in the surgical world.”

Currently, the committee is working on understanding how clinicians in different settings learn and what it takes for them to adapt new findings for their practice. “Obviously, if it currently takes 15 years, what we’re doing right now isn’t working,” said Fisher. 

The two pilot projects for implementing the AO-tailored Knowledge Translation framework had to fulfill several criteria. First and foremost, their findings had to be easy to integrate into clinicians’ practice—not resource-heavy, generalizable, and of good quality. With the pilots—EPOSO and TLA3/A4, —selected, the committee recently convened in London to refine tailored Knowledge Translation plans, including strategies to measure their translational efforts.

“I am hoping that our work will eventually contribute to reducing the knowledge gap by five to ten years,” said Fisher. “But I also want to get some answers to why it actually takes so long.”