LIFE COURSE BEYOND RESEARCH: LEARNING THROUGH IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION

Strong research results and supportive funding propelled leadership of a healthcare system to implement LifeCourse across multiple clinics and collaborating community sites. LifeCourse relies upon lay healthcare workers, called care guides. The implementing primary and specialty care clinics hired care guides to provide whole person care for clinic patients living with serious illness. During implementation, clinic leaders were solicited to be part of a team which met over several weeks to help prepare the clinics, hire the care guides, and champion LifeCourse. The program materials were adapted from the research intervention to support the specific patient population and clinic processes. In addition to following a detailed implementation strategy, an evaluation plan was created to measure the effectiveness and provide feedback on the process and outcomes. The presentation will describe the implementation and evaluation framework for systematic deployment and will summarize the successes and challenges of integrating research into practice.