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Translating Research in Elder Care: an applied program of health services research

Collection published in Trials, BMC Research Notes, BMC Health Services Research, BMC Geriatrics, Implementation Science, and BMC Medical Research Methodology.

The Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) program is an observational multi-method health services research project underway in the prairie provinces of Canada (funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research). Its focus is improving care delivered in nursing homes. TREC is designed to establish the associations between organizational context, bedside knowledge use, work life quality for caregivers, and resident outcomes. The data sources for TREC include direct reports from frontline caregivers and their managers, facility and unit demographic data, and clinical outcome data generated as part of the regular care process using the interRAI Resident Assessment Instrument system. 

These articles describe the protocols for the TREC program and the evolution of the approaches taken by the team in its first four years to feed research findings back to study participants as the team began to move toward an integrated knowledge translation model.

  1. To study the association between organizational context and research utilization in German residential long term care (LTC), we translated three Canadian assessment instruments: the Alberta Context Tool (ACT),...

    Authors: Matthias Hoben, Marion Bär, Cornelia Mahler, Sarah Berger, Janet E Squires, Carole A Estabrooks, Andreas Kruse and Johann Behrens
    Citation: BMC Research Notes 2014 7:67
  2. OPTIC is a mixed method Partnership for Health System Improvement (http://​www.​cihr-irsc.​gc.​ca/​e/​34348.​html) study focused on improving care for nursing home ...

    Authors: Robert Colin Reid, Garnet E Cummings, Sarah L Cooper, Stephanie L Abel, Laura J Bissell, Carole A Estabrooks, Brian H Rowe, Adrian Wagg, Peter G Norton, Mike Ertel and Greta G Cummings
    Citation: BMC Health Services Research 2013 13:515
  3. Understanding the relationship between organizational context and research utilization is key to reducing the research-practice gap in health care. This is particularly true in the residential long term care (...

    Authors: Matthias Hoben, Cornelia Mahler, Marion Bär, Sarah Berger, Janet E Squires, Carole A Estabrooks and Johann Behrens
    Citation: BMC Health Services Research 2013 13:478
  4. In recent years, improving the quality of care for nursing home residents has generated a considerable amount of attention. In response, quality indicators (QIs), based on available evidence and expert consens...

    Authors: Carole A Estabrooks, Jennifer A Knopp-Sihota and Peter G Norton
    Citation: BMC Research Notes 2013 6:460
  5. Bridging the research-practice gap is an important research focus in continuing care facilities, because the population of older adults (aged 65 years and over) requiring continuing care services is the fastes...

    Authors: Susan E Slaughter, Carole A Estabrooks, C Allyson Jones, Adrian S Wagg and Misha Eliasziw
    Citation: Trials 2013 14:355
  6. Almost 90 percent of nursing home residents have some type of mobility limitation. Many spend most of their waking hours lying in bed or sitting. Such inactivity can negatively affect residents’ health and gen...

    Authors: Susan E Slaughter and Carole A Estabrooks
    Citation: BMC Geriatrics 2013 13:110
  7. There is emerging evidence that context is important for successful transfer of research knowledge into health care practice. The Alberta Context Tool (ACT) is a Canadian developed research-based instrument th...

    Authors: Ann Catrine Eldh, Anna Ehrenberg, Janet E Squires, Carole A Estabrooks and Lars Wallin
    Citation: BMC Health Services Research 2013 13:68
  8. Changes in health status, triggered by events such as infections, falls, and geriatric syndromes, are common among nursing home (NH) residents and necessitate transitions between NHs and Emergency Departments ...

    Authors: Greta G Cummings, R Colin Reid, Carole A Estabrooks, Peter G Norton, Garnet E Cummings, Brian H Rowe, Stephanie L Abel, Laura Bissell, Joan L Bottorff, Carole A Robinson, Adrian Wagg, Jacques S Lee, Susan L Lynch and Elmabrok Masaoud
    Citation: BMC Geriatrics 2012 12:75
  9. In Canada, healthcare aides (also referred to as nurse aides, personal support workers, nursing assistants) are unregulated personnel who provide 70-80% of direct care to residents living in nursing homes. Alt...

    Authors: Lisa A Cranley, Peter G Norton, Greta G Cummings, Debbie Barnard, Neha Batra-Garga and Carole A Estabrooks
    Citation: BMC Geriatrics 2012 12:59
  10. Engaging end-users of research in the process of disseminating findings may increase the relevance of findings and their impact for users. We report findings from a case study that explored how involvement wit...

    Authors: Lisa A Cranley, Judy M Birdsell, Peter G Norton, Debra G Morgan and Carole A Estabrooks
    Citation: Implementation Science 2012 7:90
  11. This project occurred during the course of the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) program of research. TREC is a multilevel and longitudinal research program being conducted in the three Canadian Prairi...

    Authors: Alison M Hutchinson, Neha Batra-Garga, Lisa Cranley, Anne-Marie Bostrom, Greta Cummings, Peter Norton and Carole A Estabrooks
    Citation: Implementation Science 2012 7:89
  12. This project is part of the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) program of research, a multi-level and longitudinal research program being conducted in 36 nursing homes in three Canadian Prairie Province...

    Authors: Anne-Marie Boström, Lisa A Cranley, Alison M Hutchinson, Greta G Cummings, Peter G Norton and Carole A Estabrooks
    Citation: Implementation Science 2012 7:88
  13. This report is an introduction to a series of three research papers that describe the evolution of the approaches taken by the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) research team during its first four year...

    Authors: Carole A Estabrooks, Gary F Teare and Peter G Norton
    Citation: Implementation Science 2012 7:87
  14. Organizational context has the potential to influence the use of new knowledge. However, despite advances in understanding the theoretical base of organizational context, its measurement has not been adequatel...

    Authors: Carole A Estabrooks, Janet E Squires, Leslie A Hayduk, Greta G Cummings and Peter G Norton
    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2011 11:107
  15. The current profile of residents living in Canadian nursing homes includes elder persons with complex physical and social needs. High resident acuity can result in increased staff workload and decreased qualit...

    Authors: Lisa A Cranley, Peter G Norton, Greta G Cummings, Debbie Barnard and Carole A Estabrooks
    Citation: Implementation Science 2011 6:71
  16. There is a lack of acceptable, reliable, and valid survey instruments to measure conceptual research utilization (CRU). In this study, we investigated the psychometric properties of a newly developed scale (th...

    Authors: Janet E Squires, Carole A Estabrooks, Christine V Newburn-Cook and Mark Gierl
    Citation: BMC Health Services Research 2011 11:107
  17. Defining what constitutes a resident care unit in nursing home research is both a conceptual and practical challenge. The aim of this paper is to provide evidence in support of a definition of care unit in nursin...

    Authors: Carole A Estabrooks, Debra G Morgan, Janet E Squires, Anne-Marie Boström, Susan E Slaughter, Greta G Cummings and Peter G Norton
    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2011 11:46
  18. The context of healthcare organizations such as hospitals is increasingly accepted as having the potential to influence the use of new knowledge. However, the mechanisms by which the organizational context inf...

    Authors: Carole A Estabrooks, Janet E Squires, Greta G Cummings, Judy M Birdsell and Peter G Norton
    Citation: BMC Health Services Research 2009 9:234
  19. The organizational context in which healthcare is delivered is thought to play an important role in mediating the use of knowledge in practice. Additionally, a number of potentially modifiable contextual facto...

    Authors: Jo Rycroft-Malone, Sue Dopson, Lesley Degner, Alison M Hutchinson, Debra Morgan, Norma Stewart and Carole A Estabrooks
    Citation: Implementation Science 2009 4:53
  20. While there is a growing awareness of the importance of organizational context (or the work environment/setting) to successful knowledge translation, and successful knowledge translation to better patient, pro...

    Authors: Carole A Estabrooks, Janet E Squires, Greta G Cummings, Gary F Teare and Peter G Norton
    Citation: Implementation Science 2009 4:52
  21. The knowledge translation field is undermined by two interrelated gaps – underdevelopment of the science and limited use of research in health services and health systems decision making. The importance of con...

    Authors: Carole A Estabrooks, Alison M Hutchinson, Janet E Squires, Judy Birdsell, Greta G Cummings, Lesley Degner, Debra Morgan and Peter G Norton
    Citation: Implementation Science 2009 4:51