Beyond Initial Implementation: Barriers and facilitators to the scale-up, adaptation, maintenance & sustainability of GetCheckedOnline

This report provides an overview of the barriers and facilitators to the ongoing implementation of GetCheckedOnline (GCO)—a comprehensive internet-based testing service for sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBIs) available in select communities in British Columbia (BC), Canada, first implemented in 2014. Findings in this report are from a larger study which aimed to understand the contextual barriers and facilitators that have shaped the implementation of GCO, and learn what it takes to implement and expand GCO and other similar services in fair and sustainable ways.

Our study used the critical research approach of institutional ethnography with a view to describing the macro-level structural factors shaping the continuing implementation of GCO beyond its initial implementation. The findings in this report are from the analysis of 25 individual interviews with provincial and regional implementers of GCO and other stakeholders and observations of planning and operations meeting related to GCO implementation between April 2019 and February 2020. We also conducted a review of key documents relevant to the work of implementing GCO and public health services in BC. This report provides an overview of the contextual barriers and facilitators pertaining to the later phases of the implementation of GCO, specifically the scale-up, adaptation, maintenance, and sustainability of GCO.