Implementation Strategies Applied in Communities Matching Process (ISAC Match): Expanded Guidance and Case Study

Implementation strategies are methods or techniques to improve the adoption, implementation, sustainment, and scale-up of evidence-based interventions. Limited guidance exists on feasible processes for selecting and tailoring implementation strategies in community (non-clinical) settings. The Implementation Strategies Applied in Communities (ISAC) compilation includes a pragmatic matching process to accompany the compilation (ISAC Match). This study expands on ISAC Match by providing additional detail and potential approaches to complete the four-step matching process, including a case study from work in a state Cooperative Extension System. IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES APPLIED IN COMMUNITIES MATCHING PROCESS (ISAC MATCH): ISAC Match is intended to be applied within integrated research-practice partnerships or similar models. Before beginning the ISAC Match process, participants should have identified a new or existing evidence-based intervention they are interested in integrating (or improving the integration of) and have the power and scope to influence implementation. ISAC Match includes four steps: 1) reviewing available information on evidence-based intervention integration and conducting contextual inquiry, if needed, to understand barriers and facilitators; 2) identifying existing implementation strategies used in the implementing organization, 3) using recommended guidance tools to select relevant implementation strategies to overcome barriers and capitalize on facilitators; and 4) tailoring strategies to fit within the setting they will be used in. These steps are completed with health equity considerations in mind to ensure that implementation strategies are designed to improve adoption, implementation, and maintenance in ways that seek to narrow existing health disparities. To illustrate the use of ISAC Match, this study applied the four-step ISAC Match process to select and tailor implementation strategies to increase Montana State University Extension Agents' adoption of built environment approaches that facilitate physical activity.

The ISAC match process was developed to apply to community settings because of a lack of guidance on rapid, relevant methods for selecting and tailoring implementation strategies to overcome barriers and capitalize on facilitators. Future work is needed to determine whether the ISAC match process is more efficient and whether results are more impactful than other matching processes that are less specific to community settings.