Impact and Implementation of Clinical Trial Networks

Recent group activities:

• Scope and definitions of the group were developed by leadership group early 2018
• Impact and Implementation forum held in August 2018 with national and international speakers
• A survey of all networks to establish how much they consider implementability and implementation as part of their trial designs
• A report stemming from the survey results

Current activities:

The group has recently published a pragmatic literature review and concept map in Trials journal, providing trialists with a tool to consider a range of areas in which practical action could enhance the implementability of trials. This open access article also explores how future work could validate the strength of the associations between the concepts identified and implementability of trials and investigate the effectiveness of steps to address each concept. Read the full article here.

The group is in the final stages of publishing three guidance documents for trialists. These will be published in full on the ACTA website and then condensed summaries submitted for publication in a medical journal. These documents will come under the following headings:

• Optimising for implementation
  • What next after the trial?
  • Measuring implementation

Future activities:

• The group is planning to present its work to the Department of Health at its next meeting with ACTA
• They will develop a tool to measure the impact of trials and training on the use of the tool
• The group hopes to evaluate key issues in the measurement of impact in trial funding proposals