The Price of Practice Change: Assessing the Cost of Integrating Research Findings Into Clinical Practice

BACKGROUND: Clinicians, health care administrators, and implementation scientists know that it takes intentional effort, resources, and implementation strategies to integrate research findings into routine clinical practice. An oft-cited concern for those considering whether and how to implement an evidence-based program is how much it will cost to implement the change. Yet information about the cost of implementation is not often available to health care decision-makers. Teams that received Implementation Award funding from PCORI are conducting implementation projects to promote the uptake of evidence-based practices in health care settings. As part of their implementation efforts, a number of teams have examined the costs of implementation. In this Topical Collection, 5 teams will report their findings on implementation costs and discuss their methods for data collection and analysis. DISCUSSION: The teams’ costing efforts provide specific information about the costs sites can expect to incur in promoting the uptake of specific evidence-based programs. In addition, the papers illuminate 3 key features of the teams’ approaches to measuring the cost of implementation: (1) the use of specific micro-costing methods with time-driven activity-based costing serving as the most popular method; (2) different ways to categorize and organize costs, including a site-based and non-site-based framework; and (3) cost collection challenges experienced by the teams. CONCLUSION: The cost of implementation is a critical consideration for organizations seeking to improve practice in accordance with research findings. This Topical Collection describes detailed approaches to providing this type of cost information and highlights insights to be gained from a rigorous focus on implementation cost.