Research & services partnerships: Lessons learned through a national partnership between clinical leaders and researchers

This column describes lessons learned by U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) researchers and clinical operations managers while they were engaged in a unique partnership. In this partnership, researchers turned generalizable lessons from implementation research into actionable guidance for use by clinical managers in implementing health care system change. The lessons learned are reflections about the necessary foundations for partnering, the importance of relationships, the need for regular communication, and the need to recognize and adapt to partners' timelines and time constraints.