Knowledge Exchange occurs through "linkage and exchange" - the interaction, collaboration, and exchange of ideas. At every step in the research process - conception, investigation, and dissemination of results - the Foundation encourages linkage and exchange between researchers and decision makers to get the best possible result for health services.
The Foundation has a number of initiatives that incorporates Knowledge Exchange into health services research, management, and policy:
- We facilitate this linkage and exchange process through several programs. Through national and cross-organizational consultations called Listening for Direction, we identify priority areas for research by consulting with decision makers in healthcare to find out what they want to know more about.
- The Foundation's newly redesigned programs competition called Research, Exchange, and Impact for System Support (REISS) links researchers and decision makers together as partners on funded research.
- We offer user-friendly summaries of research evidence, such as the Mythbusters series. We add value to this by increasingly focusing efforts on developing and producing existing and new forms of research summary to serve decision makers' needs.
- We fund research syntheses - evaluations of research evidence aimed at making "best practice" recommendations for a specific area of management or policy development. We also promote the effective dissemination of research evidence to help ensure it is a factor in decision-making.
- The Capacity for Applied and Developmental Research and Evaluation (CADRE) program aims to develop increased capacity in applied health services and policy research, including nursing management and organization issues. It focuses on increasing the number of trained applied researchers and expanding their skills and knowledge of the decision-making environment.
- The Executive Training for Research Application (EXTRA) program is a national training program designed to train health services leaders to become even better decision makers by using and applying evidence from research in their day-to-day work.
- With the Nursing Research Fund, the Foundation supports the development of research on nursing issues. We invest in programs that both increase the number of people doing applied nursing research and encourage a greater focus on nursing management and policy issues.
- The Foundation is also committed to summarizing knowledge by creating templates and approaches for plain-writing reports.
- Each knowledge exchange program element can be enhanced by the work of individuals or organizations who "broker knowledge" - facilitate its transfer among disparate groups. We are pioneering the study of knowledge brokering in the health services field.
