How to use the Leading Change Toolkit
Welcome to the Leading Change Toolkit. A resource to help you as change agents and change teams make lasting improvements in health care. The Leading Change Toolkit is an online, open-access evidence-informed implementation resource. It focuses on the uptake and sustainability of knowledge - or evidence - and uses two complementary frameworks to help you accelerate your success.
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The Leading Change Toolkit consists of four sections
Accelerate your success with two complementary frameworks
The Leading Change Toolkit features two complementary frameworks: the Social Movement Action (SMA) Framework and the Knowledge-To-Action (KTA) Framework. To get started on the path to success, you can use both of these implementation frameworks as tools to guide your process.
Social Movement Action Framework
The Social Movement Action (SMA) Framework (Grinspun et al., 2022; Grinspun et al., 2020) is a collection of core elements that depict a social movement in the context of using knowledge to create lasting change. It describes a people-led, "bottom-up" grassroots approach to change that develops in response to an urgent shared concern or strongly desired change as well as a readiness for purposeful action by individuals, groups and organizations.
Knowledge-to-Action Framework
The Knowledge-to-Action (KTA) Framework was originally developed in 2006 by Dr. Ian Graham and colleagues and is based on more than 30 change theories. It provides a structured approach for making change, including a seven phase action cycle that moves knowledge into practice. The KTA framework has two main parts: The knowledge creation process and the action cycle.
Engaging persons with lived experience
Engaging persons with lived experience means intentional partnering with patients, families or communities throughout the planning, delivery and evaluation of health services to improve quality and safety (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2016; Canadian Patient Safety Institute, 2017; Nelligan et al., 2002; RNAO, 2015).
By Framework
To support you through your change journey, we present each of the two featured implementation frameworks in the Leading Change Toolkit - SMA and KTA. For each of the framework's elements, a full article page with content is provided with topics including:
- defining it and its importance in change,
- tips on how to navigate common problems related to the element, and
- links to other elements within the same framework and the other one.
Examples of article pages from each of the frameworks are linked below:
KTA - Select, tailor implement interventions
SMA - Urgent need to take action
By Journey
The SMA and KTA frameworks are two complementary frameworks and can be used together to accelerate successful change. To do so, the Leading Change Toolkit offers journeys that will lead you through the change process.
The three journeys of change are organized according to the following time points:
1. Planning for change
2. Making change happen
3. Sustaining change
The example below lists all of the relevant components for the SMA and KTA frameworks for the "Planning for change" journey.
Example:
Journey: Planning for change
SMA Framework components
Preconditions:
KTA Framework components
Three action cycle phases:
Tools
Tools are included for each of the components of the two frameworks. There are also shortcuts to tools almost everywhere on the Leading Change Toolkit. If you are looking for a particular tool, you can filter them on the designated tool pages.
Example:
A case study for a KTA section may appear on the home page, on the KTA framework page, on a journey page, and in the combined “Case Study” page, where you can filter the case studies by tags.
Each case study is tagged by framework or journey, and you can see all similar case studies by clicking on the tags.
Describes examples of how the framework components have been used by organizations, including RNAO BPSOs® and others, as well as examples from the literature.
Provides links to downloadable files of practical checklists, worksheets and resource pages.
Provides summaries of pragmatic and valid tools (for example, surveys and questionnaires) to assess a component of an action cycle phase. (Please note that this list is not exhaustive and the inclusion of a tool in one of the action cycle phases does not imply an endorsement from RNAO.)
Website map
To find all of what you need in the Leading Change Toolkit, explore the website map.
Want to learn more about using the strategies of the SMA and KTA frameworks to support your change? Sign up for the RNAO Best Practice Champions training course.
