The long and winding road: navigating the field of implementation science

At the core of solving the problems of both the cube and in implementation science is the “combinations” issue. Most exponents of Rubik’s cube know that the number of permutations is the daunting aspect of tackling it and the joy inherent in manipulating and solving it. Similarly, addressing implementation science is a combinations problem. Just like Rubik’s cube, there are many aspects to implementation science, and it is both formidable and joyful to constantly strive to choose a pathway to get evidence of what people know works into routine practice. Implementation science, or more aptly the pursuit of it, is ongoing, dynamic, and intricate and manifests as a challenge in many different ways and uniquely in every health setting. Like other complex problems, there are many unknowns and a myriad of interrelated factors which combine and are not reduceable to solutions that can be readily found by following rules or algorithms.