A Platform for Increasing Academic Detailing Visibility in Ireland

Guest Blog Interview: David O’Riordan, MPharm, MPH, PhD
Senior Pharmacovigilance Officer
Pharmaceutical Care Research Group
University College Cork, Ireland

​Tags: Detailer Visits, International, Training

NaRCAD: Thanks for speaking with us, David! Tell us a bit about your professional background in healthcare, and how you became involved in academic detailing.
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David: I am a pharmacist by training, and a couple years ago I decided to carry out a PhD in Clinical Pharmacy at the University College Cork. As part of the PhD, I completed a systematic review examining how pharmacists can be utilized to optimize prescribing in primary care, including through academic detailing. After finding NaRCAD’s resources through a Google search, I registered for the NaRCAD conference in Boston. Dr. Fischer, Dr. Avorn, and all the other attendees at the conference were very encouraging.

I left the conference determined and enthused to lead an academic detailing intervention back home. Dr. Avorn and Dr. Fisher put me in touch with Eimir Hurley, a PhD scholar in Ireland, who formerly worked in academic detailing at Alosa Health, and who ended up being a great help in executing the intervention.

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​NaRCAD: That’s terrific—it sounds like you had a great team at your disposal to begin this work. Can you tell us a little about the unique characteristics of the Irish health system?

David: Ireland has a public and private health system. Public patients are more likely to wait longer for appointments. Private insurance is a substantial cost to individuals, though. The health care system is quite fractured unless you’re a private patient. Pharmaceutical drug representatives are also allowed to visit primary health practices here.
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NaRCAD: In April, you published a study titled “Pharmacist-led academic detailing intervention in primary care: a mixed methods feasibility study” in the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy. Why did you choose urinary incontinence as a clinical topic?

​David: As this was a feasibility study, I decided to use one topic as part of the intervention. I organized a meeting with a group of general practitioners (physicians) who would be involved in the academic detailing intervention. The topic of urinary incontinence was chosen by the physicians because they highlighted that it was a topic not discussed regularly among themselves, and currently their only source of information is provided by pharmaceutical drug representatives.

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NaRCAD: What barriers to success did you come across in your feasibility study?
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David: For this project, I was the only academic detailer. I started detailing after going to the two-day Basics Academic Detailing Training in Boston in May 2016. In some cases, during the roll out of the intervention I found it difficult to get past the practice manager, but luckily I had learned strategies on getting in the door in Boston that were useful in my effort. On a few occasions, the practice managers didn’t follow through on connecting me with the physicians. I got around this by utilizing physicians I knew in other practices to gain access to their practice. A lot of it came down to how well you know the physicians. I was lucky that they trusted me when I spoke to them. When I did get to meet with physicians, they all seemed very enthusiastic. ​

NaRCAD: Can you talk a bit more about how receptive physicians were to academic detailing?

David: Absolutely! This was a mixed methods study, so my colleague Eimir Hurley carried out focus groups after my detailing sessions to evaluate the feasibility of the intervention. Eimir conducted the focus groups on my behalf to reduce bias. The physicians liked that I wasn’t from a pharmaceutical company and that the sessions only lasted 10-15 minutes. They liked that local physicians had chosen the topic, and I wasn’t coming with my own agenda.

NaRCAD: How are you or others going to use your feasibility study results to implement across the country?
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David: I am currently not involved in academic detailing, but I hope to be again in the future. If someone from another part of Ireland read my paper, they would recognize that physicians are very willing to take part in academic detailing. From my experience physicians didn’t feel threatened and really enjoyed the interaction. They liked the interactive style of the visits, and the way that that the evidence was delivered. My study provides a platform for other researchers to detail to a wider group of physicians in Ireland. 

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NaRCAD: Anything else?
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David: I am very grateful for the NaRCAD team for providing the academic detailing training. I knew literally nothing about academic detailing, and through meeting their team members Sarah Ball, Amanda Kennedy, Mary Liz Doyle-Tadduni, and others, I felt encouraged to go back and detail. I was the only person from Ireland at the training, and the NaRCAD team gave me some useful feedback. I really enjoyed academic detailing, and I was especially proud when my paper was published. I discovered there is an appetite for this educational intervention in Ireland. 

Biography
David O’Riordan, MPharm, MPH, PhD
Senior Pharmacovigilance Officer
Pharmaceutical Care Research Group
University College Cork, Ireland
David holds a Masters in Pharmacy (MPharm), Masters in Public Health (MPH), Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (PG Cert) and a PhD in Clinical Pharmacy.

He has extensive experience as a community pharmacist. He previously worked as a Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacy in University College Cork (UCC). While there, he contributed to and assisted in the delivery of research-led teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level. He also supervised on a number of research projects. He was a clinical trials pharmacist involved in the Thyroid Hormone Replacement for Subclinical Hypo-Thyroidism Trial (TRUST). This was a randomised placebo controlled clinical trial comparing levothyroxine to placebo in community dwelling older adults (≥65 years) with subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH). He is also a tutor on the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) Academy. This educational initiative was developed by the IPU to support pharmacist engagement with Continuous Professional Development (CPD). He is currently the Senior Pharmacovigilance Officer at the HRB-Clinical Research Facility, UCC.

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