Implementation science is the scientific study of methods and strategies that facilitate the uptake of evidence-based practice and research into regular use by practitioners and policymakers.
Both "implementation science" and "improvement science" share an intent to implement and spread successful changes in healthcare practice and policy.
One article puts the distinction in clear terms:
Broadly, improvement science refers to systems-level work to improve the quality, safety, and value of health care, whereas implementation science refers to work to promote the systematic uptake of evidence-based interventions into practice and policy. The two fields arose from different philosophical underpinnings: Improvement science from industry, mostly automotive, takes a pragmatic approach to the reduction of poor performance in health, whereas implementation science from behavioral science focuses on a need to adopt new evidence into practice. These two disciplines fit well into two aspects of the high-quality care delivery system, as depicted in the Institute of Medicine report [Delivering High-Quality Cancer Care: Charting a New Course for a System in Crisis]: implementation science through focusing on timely and appropriate uptake of evidence and improvement science through measuring performance to achieve improvement.
