Join us for an in-person Distinguished Speaker event featuring Guillaume Fontaine, Director of the McGill RISE³ Implementation Science Lab and Assistant Professor at McGill University. An internationally recognized leader in implementation science, Fontaine's research advances the use of evidence-based frameworks and methodologies to improve healthcare outcomes, with a particular focus on integrating artificial intelligence into implementation research and practice.
Title: The Implementation Problem in AI: Perspectives from Implementation Science
Abstract: AI systems can perform well in testing and still deliver limited benefits in practice. Their impact depends on whether people adopt them, how they fit into everyday work, and whether their use produces lasting benefits across populations.
This talk examines how AI and implementation science can inform each other. Implementation science studies how evidence and innovations are adopted, integrated into routine practice, and sustained. It offers methods to identify barriers to AI use, test strategies to address those barriers, and assess outcomes beyond technical performance. AI also raises questions for the field. As AI systems are updated and used in different settings, what should remain consistent in our approach to implementation, what needs to be adapted, and how can effective use be sustained?
In the other direction, AI is being explored as a tool to support implementation research. Applications include reviewing evidence, identifying barriers to change, developing implementation strategies, and supporting evaluation. I will discuss how to assess the reliability of these contributions, whose knowledge and perspectives they reflect, and where local knowledge and human judgment remain essential.
I will argue that realizing AI’s promise requires asking what works, for whom, under what conditions, and how to achieve lasting, equitable benefits at scale.
Dr. Guillaume Fontaine (PhD, MSc, RN) is the Director of the McGill RISE³ Implementation Science Lab and an Assistant Professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He is a Principal Investigator in the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology at the Lady Davis Institute, and holds visiting appointments in the Viral Hepatitis Clinical Research Program at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney, and the Centre for Implementation Research, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. He co-leads the Implementation Science Research Pillar for the Canadian Network on Hepatitis C, co-leads the Methods Think Tank for the Pan-Canadian HIV/AIDS Clinical Trials Research Network, serves on the Steering Committee of Knowledge Translation Canada, and co-chairs the Global Network on Implementation and Data Sciences. His research program focuses on applying and advancing implementation science frameworks and methodologies to improve healthcare outcomes, , with particular emphasis on the integration of AI into implementation research and practice.