Strategies for sustainability

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There are seven strategies that are commonly used by change teams who aim to sustain the innovations they implement: 

1. Acquire sufficient funding for work for the continued use of the evidence-informed intervention or practice.
2. Maintain skills through continued training, booster training sessions, supervision, and feedback.
3. Ensure that organizational leaders and relevant stakeholders prioritize and support continued use.
4. Ensure that organization priorities and/or program needs are aligned with the innovation.
5. Maintain staff engagement.
6. Adapt the innovation to increase continued fit/compatibility with the organization.
7. Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the innovation.

SOURCE: Hailemariam et al., 2019. 

Share your experience!

• The concept and understanding of sustainability in the implementation science literature are relatively new.
• Even though researchers, change teams and health-care providers have made huge advancements since 2015 in conceptualizing sustainability, there are still many gaps that will need to be addressed in the literature.

Your experiences and observations on how a change initiative is sustained will help move the field forward. If you have a suggestion or advice for others who are also trying to sustain changes in their practice, please share through sites such as Twitter at #LeadingChangeToolkit. Many would benefit from your experience!