Do Published Studies of Educational Outreach Provide Documentation of Potentially Important Characteristics?
Abstract
Educational outreach is a common intervention used to translate research findings into practice; however, the intervention has a mixed effect on changing clinician behavior and improving patient outcomes. Based on a published set of characteristics aimed at standardizing the approach to educational outreach, the authors undertook a careful review of the literature to determine the consistency and completeness of documentation. Using a 25-item abstraction tool, the authors reviewed 68 published studies of a recent Cochrane meta-analysis to determine the extent to which educational outreach studies provide recommended documentation of important characteristics. The results indicate that studies are generally inconsistent (documentation range of 0% to 100% across characteristics) and incomplete (documentation average of 43.1% across studies) in their descriptions. Documentation shortcomings of educational outreach studies make understanding the intervention and interpreting its findings particularly challenging. The authors recommend the creation of a guideline to help improve documentation of educational outreach efforts.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Limitations in intervention design impede evaluations of interventions.
“Limitations in intervention design impede evaluations of interventions [7, 8].”
From Methods for designing interventions to change healthcare professionals’ behaviour: a systematic review (2017) · cites this paper as [8]
Cites
The Measurement of Observer Agreement for Categorical Data
Landis, J. R., & Koch, G. G. (1977) · Biometrics · doi:10.2307/2529310 · Cited by 81,148 · see citing works
Valente, T. W. (2003) · Genetics in Medicine · doi:10.1097/01.gim.0000061743.67794.c4 · Cited by 20,555 · see citing works
Principles of Educational Outreach ('Academic Detailing') to Improve Clinical Decision Making
Soumerai, S. B. (1990) · JAMA · doi:10.1001/jama.1990.03440040088034 · Cited by 1,045 · see citing works
Continuing Medical Education and the Physician as a Learner
Mazmanian, P. E., & Davis, D. A. (2002) · JAMA · doi:10.1001/jama.288.9.1057 · Cited by 476 · see citing works
Øvretveit, J. (2011) · BMJ Quality & Safety · doi:10.1136/bmjqs.2010.045955 · Cited by 337 · see citing works
Publication guidelines for quality improvement in health care: evolution of the SQUIRE project
Davidoff, F., Batalden, P., Stevens, D., Ogrinc, G., Mooney, S., & for the SQUIRE development group (2008) · Quality and Safety in Health Care · doi:10.1136/qshc.2008.029066 · Cited by 324 · see citing works
‘Bench To Behavior’: Translating Comparative Effectiveness Research Into Improved Clinical Practice
Avorn, J., & Fischer, M. A. (2010) · Health Affairs · doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2010.0696 · Cited by 80 · see citing works
The Science of Continuing Medical Education: Terms, Tools, and Gaps
Davis, D., Bordage, G., Moores, L. K., Bennett, N. L., Marinopoulos, S. S., Mazmanian, P. E., Dorman, T., & McCrory, D. C. (2009) · CHEST Journal · doi:10.1378/chest.08-2513 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Using Theory and Evidence to Guide the Use of Educational Outreach to Improve Patient Care
Hoof, T. J. V., & Meehan, T. P. (2012) · American Journal of Medical Quality · doi:10.1177/1062860612440719 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Self-citationMeehan, T. P., Hoof, T. J. V., Giannotti, T. E., Tate, J. P., Elwell, A., Curry, M., & Petrillo, M. K. (2008) · American Journal of Medical Quality · doi:10.1177/1062860608329797 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Colquhoun, H. L., Squires, J. E., Kolehmainen, N., Fraser, C., & Grimshaw, J. M. (2017) · Implementation Science · doi:10.1186/s13012-017-0560-5 · Cited by 283 · see citing works
Reporting and design elements of audit and feedback interventions: a secondary review
Colquhoun, H. L., Michie, S., Sales, A. E., Ivers, N. M., Grimshaw, J., Carroll, K. A., Chalifoux, M., Eva, K. W., & Brehaut, J. (2016) · BMJ Quality & Safety · doi:10.1136/bmjqs-2015-005004 · Cited by 98 · see citing works
Key Features of Academic Detailing: Development of an Expert Consensus Using the Delphi Method.
Yeh, J. S.-J., Hoof, T. J. V., & Fischer, M. A. (2016) · Europe PMC (PubMed Central) · Cited by 68 · see citing works
Characteristics of Academic Detailing: Results of a Literature Review.
Hoof, T. J. V., Harrison, L. G., Miller, N. E., Pappas, M., & Fischer, M. A. (2015) · Europe PMC (PubMed Central) · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Self-citationGodman, B., Acúrcio, F., & Junior, A. A. G. (2016) · Journal of Pharmaceutical Care & Health Systems · doi:10.4172/2376-0419.1000113 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Langaas, H. C., Hurley, E., Dyrkorn, R., & Spigset, O. (2018) · European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology · doi:10.1007/s00228-018-02611-y · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Luetsch, K., Wong, G., & Rowett, D. S. (2023) · BMJ Quality & Safety · doi:10.1136/bmjqs-2022-015498 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Evidence for and Implementation of Academic Detailing
Rowett, D. S. (2020) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-981-15-2333-5_4 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Langaas, H. C., Salvesen, Ø. O., Dyrkorn, R., Blix, H. S., & Spigset, O. (2024) · Journal of General Internal Medicine · doi:10.1007/s11606-024-09014-z · Cited by 1 · see citing works
- Authors
- Van Hoof, T. J., Miller, N. E., & Meehan, T. P.
- Affiliations
- University of Connecticut School of Nursing, Storrs, CT
- University of Connecticut (US)
- ORCID
- Meehan, Thomas P.
- Venue
- American Journal of Medical Quality
- Published
- 2013-02-11
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 480-484
- ISSN
- 1062-8606 (ISSN-L)
- 1555-824X
- OpenAlex
- W2093944519
- Cited by
- 9
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 2.41
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- American Journal of Medical Quality (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Sciences Research and Education
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Policy Implementation Science
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Clinical practice guidelines implementation
- Keywords
- educational outreach, research-to-practice translation, documentation completeness, reporting quality, intervention characteristics, clinician behavior change, patient outcomes, reporting guidelines
- MeSH terms
- Documentation, Education, Medical, Continuing, Humans, United States, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Translational Research, Biomedical, Quality Improvement
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
