Agile Implementation: A Model for Implementing Evidence-Based Healthcare Solutions Into Real-World Practice to Achieve Sustainable Change

Agile Implementation describes the underlying theories and frameworks that explain health delivery systems and lays out the 8 steps of the Agile Implementation Model founded by Malaz Boustani, MD, MPH and Jose Azar, MD.

In today’s complex healthcare environment, implementing evidence-based care into real-world practices is difficult and time consuming. Even methods that are known to be effective allow for limited flexibility and therefore fail as often as they succeed. Through much study and experimentation, Malaz Boustani, MD, MPH, Jose Azar, MD, and Craig A. Solid, PhD have come to understand how individuals’ interactions within the complex social systems of hospitals, clinics, and other care delivery organizations shape the decisions and behaviors of those involved. Upon this foundation and through leveraging theories of behavioral economics, we have developed the Agile Implementation Model, a process for selecting, adapting, implementing, evaluating, sustaining, and scaling evidence-based healthcare interventions.

This model acknowledges the uniqueness of each individual facility and considers individuals within the system to be semiautonomous but interconnected. In tandem with illustrative examples, Agile Implementation describes the underlying theories and frameworks that explain health delivery systems and lays out the 8 steps of the Agile Implementation Model. Upon completing Agile Implementation, readers have a better understanding of why certain quality initiatives succeed while others fail and have tangible, actionable tools for implementing effective and sustainable change in the healthcare setting.

Malaz Boustani, MD, MPH, is the Founding Director of the Sandra Eskenazi Center for Brain Care Innovation Center and is the Founder and Chief Innovation and Implementation Officer of the Indiana University Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science. The center’s mission is to generate innovations to improve patient care as it tackles systemic healthcare costs. To this end, Malaz leads a diverse and interdisciplinary team of scientists, clinicians, and engineers to develop and implement innovations that improve brain health, brain care quality, and patients and their families’ brain care experience. He is also a Research Scientist for the Regenstrief Institute and a Professor of Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Malaz lives in Indianapolis with his wife Mary and has two children, Katreen and Zayn.

Joze Azar, MD, is the Chief Quality and Safety Officer at the IU Health Academic Health Center as well as the co-founder and Chief Engagement Officer at the Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science. He is also a practicing Hematologist/Oncologist at the IU Health Simon Cancer Center. He graduated medical school from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon and completed his residency in Internal Medicine and Fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, IN. Joze lives in Indianapolis with his wife Karen and two children, Christopher and Nicole.

Craig A. Solid, PhD, is the Owner and Principal of Solid Research Group, LLC in St. Paul, MN. He has worked in healthcare research and quality for twenty years, focusing on issues related to data, measurement, and value. He lives in St. Paul, MN with his wife Emily and their three children, Vieva, Emmett, and Kipp.