Knowledge creation through total clinical outcomes management: a practice-based evidence solution to address some of the challenges of knowledge translation.

INTRODUCTION The challenges of knowledge translation in behavioural health care are unique to this field for a variety of reasons including the fact that effective treatment is invariably embedded in a strong relationship between practitioners and the people they serve. METHODS Practitioners' knowledge gained from experience and intuition become an even more important consideration in the knowledge translation process since clinicians are, in fact, a component of most treatments. Communication of findings from science must be conceptualized with sensitivity to this reality. RESULTS Considering knowledge translation as a communication process suggests the application of contemporary theories of communication which emphasize the creation of shared meaning over the transmission of knowledge from one person to the next. CONCLUSION In this context outcomes management approaches to create a learning environment within clinical practices that facilitate the goals of knowledge transfer while respecting that the scientific enterprise is neither the sole nor primary repository of knowledge.