title: Academic Detailing in Diabetes: Using Outreach Education to Improve the Quality of Care.
abstract: Most diabetes care is provided in primary care settings, but typical primary care clinicians struggle to keep up with the latest evidence on diabetes screening, pharmacotherapy, and monitoring. Accordingly, many patients with diabetes are not receiving optimal guideline-based therapy. Relying on front-line clinicians on their own to assess the huge volume of new literature and incorporate it into their practice is unrealistic, and conventional continuing medical education has not proven adequate to address gaps in care. Academic detailing, direct educational outreach to clinicians that uses social marketing techniques to provide specific evidence-based recommendations, has been proven in clinical trials to improve the quality of care for a range of conditions. By directly engaging with clinicians to assess their needs, identify areas for change in practice, and provide them with specific tools to implement these changes, academic detailing can serve as a tool to improve care processes and outcomes for patients with diabetes.
authors: National Resource Center for Academic Detailing, Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 1620 Tremont St, suite 3030, Boston, MA, 02120, USA. mfischer@partners.org.
authors: Michael A
authors: MA
authors: Fischer
mesh_terms: D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000628:therapy*; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006801:Humans; D011787:Quality of Health Care
keywords: Academic detailing; Educational outreach visits; Evidence-based medicine