Cross-Pollinators and Boundary Spanners: Contributions of Ontario Health Team Fellows to Quality Improvement and Evaluation Capacity for Health Systems

AI Summary

Embedded researchers act as boundary spanners, linking academic evidence and health system decision makers to reduce the evidence to action gap.
They serve as cross pollinators, transferring knowledge, methods and skills to build sustained quality improvement and evaluation capacity.
Within nine Ontario Health Teams, embedded roles enabled practical learning health system cycles and supported integrated system level improvements.

Healthc Q. 2026 Apr;29(1):37-43. doi: 10.12927/hcq.2026.27862.

ABSTRACT

Despite knowledge mobilization efforts between academic researchers and health system decision-makers, the evidence-to-action gap persists. Given that the learning health system is a cycle of knowledge to action to knowledge, the implementation of embedded health service researchers within host health system organizations is a promising approach to bridge the evidence-to-action gap. The contributions of embedded researchers to quality improvement (QI) and evaluation research capacity for integrated health systems are promising areas that warrant investigation. This paper describes the roles and contributions of embedded researchers to QI and evaluation research capacity within the context of nine Ontario Health Teams.

PMID:42339633 | DOI:10.12927/hcq.2026.27862

Document this CPD