Original Research – Qualitative Readiness for practice change: Evaluation of a tool for the Australian midwifery context Sara Bayes a, *, Jennifer Fenwick b , David Jennings a a Edith Cowan University, Australia b Griffith University, Australia Problem or issue  The uptake of research evidence into midwifery practice is slow and uncertain. What is already known  A range of processes and tools have been developed within the emerging Implementation Science discipline to enable assessment of health care settings for their readiness to take up new evidence. These have worked well in assisting the movement of new knowledge into some professions’ practice in a timely manner, however midwifery has yet to make use of them. What this paper adds  Information about how adaptation of one existing evidence- based instrument for assessing health care practice settings’ readiness to accept and use new evidence would improve its suitability for use in midwifery. 1. Introduction In midwifery as in other health care disciplines there has been a paradigm shift over the last quarter of a century or so towards evidence-based practice. The recognition that evidence-based Women and Birth xxx (2015) xxx–xxx A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 9 July 2015 Received in revised form 30 October 2015 Accepted 2 November 2015 Keywords: Evidence-based practice Change implementation Implementation science A B S T R A C T Background: Midwifery is a research-informed profession with a mandated requirement to utilise latest best evidence. It is now recognised, however, that the introduction of new evidence into practice is complicated and uncertain. Growing awareness of this fact has led to the establishment of a new discipline, Implementation Science (IS), which is focused on developing ways to expedite the timely movement of evidence into practice. To date though, the wider midwifery profession has yet to make use of IS change-facilitation tools and methods. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the fitness for use in midwifery of one established IS tool: the UK NHS Spread & Adoption tool, which is designed to enable clinicians to assess their organisational context for change readiness. Methods: A qualitative descriptive methodology was used for this study, which was set in two Australian states. Focus groups were used to collect data. The sample comprised ten Australian change-leader midwifery teams who had led evidence-based practice change initiatives in the previous 12 months. Findings: Three themes emerged from the data which together convey that although poor internet access was problematic for some, and some of the language was found to be inappropriate, the tool was ultimately viewed as very useful for helping the implementation of practice change in midwifery settings. Conclusions: This study provides valuable information about the broad suitability of the tested tool for Australian midwifery settings. Further research is required to evaluate a revised version. ß 2015 Australian College of Midwives. Published by Elsevier Australia (a division of Reed International Books Australia Pty Ltd). All rights reserved. * Corresponding author at: School of Nursing and Midwifery, Edith Cowan University, 270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup 6027, Australia. Tel.: +61 8 63043508. E-mail address: s.bayes@ecu.edu.au (S. Bayes). G Model WOMBI-488; No. of Pages 5 Please cite this article in press as: Bayes S, et al. Readiness for practice change: Evaluation of a tool for the Australian midwifery context. Women Birth (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2015.11.001 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Women and Birth jo u rn al h om ep age: w ww.els evier.c o m/lo c ate/wo mb i http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2015.11.001 1871-5192/ß 2015 Australian College of Midwives. Published by Elsevier Australia (a division of Reed International Books Australia Pty Ltd). All rights reserved.