Knowledge transfer and exchange frameworks in health and their applicability to palliative care: scoping review protocol

Aim To review knowledge transfer and exchange frameworks used in health, to analyse the core concepts of these frameworks and appraise their potential applicability to palliative care. Background Although there are over 60 different models of knowledge transfer and exchange designed for various areas of the fields of health care, many remain largely unrefined and untested. There is a lack of studies that create guidelines for scaling-up successful implementation of research findings and of proven models ensuring that patients have access to optimal health care, guided by current research. Design The protocol for this scoping review was devised according to the guidelines proposed by Arksey and O'Malley (2005) and Levac et al. (2010). Methods The protocol includes decisions about the review objectives, inclusion criteria, search strategy, study selection, data extraction, quality assessment, data synthesis and plans for dissemination. Discussion The review will allow us to identify the currently used models of knowledge transfer and exchange in healthcare setting and analyse their applicability to the complex demands of palliative care. Results from this review will identify effective way of translating different types of knowledge to different PC providers and could be used in hospital, community and home based PC and future research.