Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Healthcare professionals often report strong intentions to use evidence-based practices to improve patient care, but intention does not always translate into action. Habits, automatic behaviors generated through repeated cue-behavior associations, may help address the intention-behavior gap and enhance adoption of evidence-based practices. As habits form, behavior control shifts from being internally guided to being triggered by external context cues, which can support making the use of evidence-based practice more routine. Despite calls to integrate habit formation in implementation science, habits have not yet been fully leveraged to select and specify implementation strategies. We argue that habits can be explicitly planned for with targeted cues, behavior routines, and rewards to support healthcare professionals in adopting evidence-based practices. We outline core elements of habit formation and provide case examples to illustrate how habit techniques can be used to catalyze implementation in healthcare.
Institution: Northwestern University
Language: English
Subfield: General Health Professions
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,790
Awards: IAMSBIRT: Implementing Alcohol Misuse SBIRT in a National Cohort of Pediatric Trauma Centers, G456162164, Implementing contingency management in opioid treatment centers across New England: A hybrid type 3 trial, Addressing alcohol misuse in HIV prevention and care: The Brown University Alcohol Research Center on HIV (ARCH)
OpenAlex ID: W7172294039