Traditionally, the findings from health services or clinical research have been disseminated to potential users through professional journal articles, mass media news reports, workshops, and printed reports sent to interested parties via the mail or electronic means. While these strategies may raise awareness, they have not been effective in promoting the actual use of this new knowledge in target audiences' decisionmaking in a timely manner. Indeed, it has been estimated that the average time it takes to move research findings into policy and practice is about 17 years.

At Health Systems Research, Inc. (HSR), our emphasis is on turning research, policy expertise, and program experience into results. One of the important ways in which we do this is by utilizing comprehensive knowledge transfer strategies that don’t simply disseminate or distribute information but rather seek to ensure that target audiences - policymakers, program managers, providers, and/or consumers - actually understand the information and utilize it to improve their decisionmaking.

A team of professionals with broad-based expertise in areas such as public health policy, health care quality assurance, training and evaluation, and health promotion spearheads HSR’s knowledge transfer work. They work closely with our clients interested in sharing important evidence-based information by developing and implementing comprehensive knowledge transfer strategies targeted to specific audiences. These strategies draw on the latest in knowledge transfer theory and practice, and apply key principles from the field, such as:

• Delivering actionable messages
• Understanding fully the context for and specific aspects of a target audience’s information needs
• Ensuring that messages are delivered by a credible messenger
• Delivering messages in cost-effective ways (including appropriate combinations of cutting-edge information technology and more traditional methods, such as meetings, workshops and print material)
• Facilitating exchange among researchers and decisionmakers
• Utilizing continuous feedback loops to improve strategies as we implement them.