Lake Superior Rural Cancer Care Project, part II: provider knowledge.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this article is to report the main learning outcomes of the Lake Superior Rural Cancer Care Project.


METHODS
The authors designed and tested a multimodal intervention directed at rural providers and their healthcare systems in a large rural area in the north central United States. An experimental design was used to randomize rural providers at the group level. The intervention consisted of providing increased education for rural providers with a number of approaches, including the use of clinical opinion leaders. The main outcome of the intervention was knowledge scoring on discipline-specific cancer management tests.


RESULTS
Knowledge scores for providers in the experimental group significantly increased from pretest to post-test: 66 to 79 for physicians (and physician assistants) (P=.02); 58 to 71 for nurses (P=.01); and 54 to 64 for pharmacists (P=.01). At post-test, participating providers in the experimental group performed significantly better on the knowledge tests (P <.01) than those in the control groups.


CONCLUSIONS
This study may be the first to test educational interventions to improve rural providers' knowledge about cancer practice using an experimental design. The intervention may possibly change provider practice behaviors and, thus, patient outcomes, data that will be reported in a future issue. Finally, this educational intervention may prove useful for providers in other rural areas.
Elliott
T E
TE
Lake Superior Rural Cancer Care Project, Division of Education and Research, St. Mary's/Duluth Clinic Health System, University of Minnesota Duluth, School of Medicine, Duluth, Minnesota 55805, USA.
Elliott
B A
BA
Regal
R R
RR
Renier
C M
CM
Crouse
B J
BJ
Gangeness
D E
DE
Witrak
M T
MT
Jensen
P B
PB
D006801:Humans; D008824:Michigan; D008910:Minnesota; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D010595:Pharmacists; D010823:Physician Assistants; D010820:Physicians; D019035:Rural Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014922:Wisconsin