Melanie Barwick

University of Toronto, Psychiatry, Faculty Member

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Melanie Barwick, Ph.D., C.Psych. is a Senior Scientist in the Child Health Evaluative Sciences Program of the SickKids’ Research Institute and the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health. She also leads professional and resource development in dissemination and implementation science and practice (knowledge translation) within the Knowledge Translation Program of the SickKids’ Learning Institute.
At the University of Toronto, she is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Social and Behavioural Health Sciences, and Institute for Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation). In addition, she is a Visiting Scholar at the University of Huddersfield in the UK. Her community work includes Vice-Chair of the Governing Board and Chair of the Board Development Committee for Children’s Mental Health Ontario and member of the Editorial Board for the SIRC journal Implementation Research and Practice.

An internationally recognized expert in dissemination and implementation science, her health services research program spans many areas of health to improve the implementation of evidence into practice and broaden the reach of evidence to support decision-making, policy, knowledge, awareness, health and well-being. She has extensive practical experience in implementation as lead technical assistance supporting outcome measurement for Ontario child and youth mental health provider organizations (2000-2015). Currently, she supports implementing innovations within the Kids Brain Health Network NCE. Her current research, funded by CIHR, is developing a digital tool, The Implementation Playbook©, to facilitate the autonomous implementation of innovations in mental health and healthcare organizations.

She developed and provides professional development in dissemination and implementation practice internationally through the Specialist Knowledge Translation Training™ (for researchers and KT practitioners), the Knowledge Translation Professional Certificate™ (for KT practitioners), and the Planning for Implementation Practice™ (PIP) (http://tinyurl.com/p2p5du6). The KTPC is recognized as a Leading Practice by Accreditation Canada and has over 500 graduates worldwide. Since 2004, SickKids has licensed SKTT training to the Research Impact Academy (AUS) and has over 3,500 learners internationally. In addition, she is the developer of tools to support dissemination and implementation.

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Pennsylvania State University

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UNL - New University of Lisbon

Enrico Cirelli

Università di Bologna

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The University of Georgia

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Noe Cornago

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Michael Goodyear

Dalhousie University

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The Implementation Effectiveness of a Freely Available Pediatric Cancer Pain Assessment App: A Pilot Implementation Study (Preprint)

Background: Pain Squad is an evidence-based, freely available iOS app designed to assess pain in ... more Background: Pain Squad is an evidence-based, freely available iOS app designed to assess pain in children with cancer. Once research-based technologies such as Pain Squad are validated, it is important to evaluate their performance in natural settings to optimize their real-world clinical use. The objective of this study was to evaluate the implementation effectiveness of Pain Squad in a natural setting. Methods: Parents of 149 children with cancer (aged 8-18 years) were contacted to invite their child to participate. Participating children downloaded Pain Squad on their own iOS devices from the Apple App Store and reported their pain using the app twice daily for 1 week. Participants then emailed their pain reports from the app to the research team and completed an online survey on their experiences. Key implementation outcomes included acceptability, appropriateness, cost, feasibility, fidelity, penetration, and sustainability. Results: Of the 149 parents contacted, 16 of their children agreed to participate. More than a third (6/16, 37.5%) of participating children returned their pain reports to the research team. Adherence to the pain assessments was 62.1% (mean 8.7/14 assessments). The 6 children who returned reports rated the app as highly feasible to download and use and rated their overall experience as acceptable. They also reported that they would be willing to sustain their Pain Squad use over several weeks and that they would recommend it to other children with cancer, which suggests that it may have potential for penetration. Conclusions: While Pain Squad was well received by the small number of children who completed the study, user uptake, engagement, and adherence were significant barriers to the implementation of Pain Squad in a natural setting. Implementation studies such as this highlight important challenges and opportunities for promoting the use and uptake of evidence-based technologies by the intended end-users.

Melanie Barwick

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