Mike Fischer, MD, MS, Director of NaRCAD

​Tags: Conference, Detailing Visits, Director's Letter

We’ve just celebrated the 5th anniversary of NaRCAD, the only national resource center and network advancing clinical outreach education. We’re also celebrating a terrifically successful 2015. Highlights included running two sold-out academic detailing techniques trainings here in Boston; traveling to San Francisco and Oklahoma City for two customized off-site trainings; and bringing everyone together for #NaRCAD2015: Motivating Change, Transforming Care, our most successful annual conference so far.
 
We’re proud of it all, and more, including the brand-new NaRCAD Website—enjoy and explore a new gateway to academic detailing, including more interactive resources and expanded opportunities for connection, learning, and sharing. With so much to celebrate from 2015, we’re setting the bar high with big goals for the year ahead. Here’s what we’ll be up to in 2016, with you as our partners:
 
Transformative Trainings: Registration for our May training in Boston is open and already filling up fast! We’re also happy to be in high demand for at least 5 “on-the-road” educational sessions and related projects across the US this year.  If you want to learn more about the ways we can share our resources and expertise to help your clinical outreach education program grow and succeed, let us know—we’d love to learn about what you’re doing and see how we can help.
 
#NaRCAD2016: Collaborating to Create Change. Our annual conference is the capstone of the year, so mark your calendars for November 14-15, 2016. What’s new this year? #NaRCAD2016 will feature opportunities to submit a proposal to showcase your clinical outreach education experience, data, and insights with the rest of the NaRCAD community. Keep your eyes on your e-mail and our conference page for more details about submission, coming soon.

​More Collaboration for Improved Health Outcomes: With 5 years of partnerships under our belt, we’re continuing to connect every day with new colleagues working in the field of AD and clinical outreach education. We’re excited to keep expanding our community and creating opportunities for deeper collaboration across programs. We invite you to stay connected as we continue to publish new blogs and interviews, feature partners on our network directory, expand our Learning Center offerings, and recommend evidence-based health news and events on our social media feeds.
 
Most of all, our team wants to hear from you! Drop us a note to tell us what you’re doing, and tell us how we can help strengthen your program and highlight your successes.
 
​See you this year!
Dr. Mike Fischer

Kicking Day 1 off and setting the tone for the entire event, NaRCAD Director Dr. Mike Fischer warmly welcomed our packed room at Harvard Medical School’s Martin Center by encouraging collaboration, connection, and sharing. Our Day 1 Keynote Speaker Dr. Carolyn Clancy, the CMO of the Veteran’s Health Administration, described the VHA’s work to improve pain management in the veteran population while addressing the challenges of medication abuse and overdose. Dr. Clancy shared strategy and data behind the national effort and the critical role of academic detailing in it, connecting attendees to a big-picture view that can be adopted to look at other health epidemics and interventions.

Our first expert panel presented Practice Facilitation in Primary Care. Andy Ellner moderated the session, leading panelists Ann Lefebvre of North Carolina's AHEC Program, Lyndee Knox of LA Net, and Allyson Gottsman of HealthTeamWorks to discuss strategies, contextualize their work in relation to academic detailing and quality improvement, and share their personal approaches to challenges in primary care behavior change.  Allyson Gottsman’s much-appreciated analogy that practice facilitation is not unlike “leading a fisherman to a well-stocked pond” resonated with panelists and participants alike. Many attendees who were actively engaged in practice facilitation in their daily work shared that the panel helped them to think about their work in a new way.

The afternoon’s breakout sessions offered attendees multiple tracks with AD-related topics to explore: deconstructing and analyzing a 1:1 AD visit, exploring the skills needed to manage an effective AD program, and strategizing on ways to identify and harness stakeholder support when initiating a new program or strengthening an existing one.

The afternoon closed with two presentations; the first, by Terryn Naumann of the Canadian Academic Detailing Collaboration (CADC), offered participants a view of the power of synergy and teamwork, the historical context of the CADC’s creation and growth, and the future of the collaboration.

More examples of successful practice change were illustrated by the morning’s Themed Plenary on the Intersection of Public Health and AD. Dr. Phillip Coffin of the San Francisco Department of Public Health shared the success of an intervention focusing on co-prescribing of naloxone to reverse opioid overdose deaths in San Francisco. Another successful AD intervention was presented by Michael Kharfen of the Washington D.C. Department of Health, who highlighted the successful implementation of AD programs to increase HIV and Hepatitis C screening and treatment.

The afternoon featured our second Expert Panel, this time on the role of AD within integrated healthcare systems. Moderated by Dr. Mike Fischer of NaRCAD, panelists Joy Leotsakos of Atrius Health (MA), Sameer Awsare of Kaiser Permanente Medical Group (CA), and Valerie Royal of Greenville Health System (SC) shared their experiences using AD in systems at different stages of development. Attendees had the opportunity to discuss this topic further in the afternoon’s breakout sessions, which also included a session on practice facilitation, as well as third session to continue to explore AD and public health partnerships.

The conference’s closing discussion was led by Mike Fischer, who thanked not only the speakers, panelists, and session leaders, but the participants, whose willingness to share their experiences within an interactive setting was key in creating solutions to bring back to use in their daily work. The creative collaborations, exchange of resources, excitement in combating challenges in the field, and belief in the importance of AD for the future of healthcare transformation were felt by all at the closing of a very full and thought-provoking event.

Our Twitter feed tracks the event’s highlights through #NaRCAD2015, and you can catch our event photo album on our Facebook page. We invite you to explore these topics, learn about our speakers and attendees, and connect with us at the NaRCAD Conference Hub, where you can access on-demand video of all main sessions from the conference. Thank you again to all who attended, and to AHRQ for funding our series. Please stay in touch with us and each other, and continue the conversation and idea sharing below. ​
​We hope to see you in 2016!

Mike Fischer, MD, MS, NaRCAD Director

Tags: Conference, Detailing Visits, Director's Letter, Opioid Safety
​
NaRCAD is thriving, thanks to the engagement and enthusiasm of our network of healthcare professionals working to improve patient outcomes. The best way to become more involved in that network is to join us for our 3rd International Conference on Academic Detailing. This year’s conference will be our most exciting and interactive event to date, with a stimulating 2-day program bringing together thought leaders for expert panels, best practices, breakout tracks, networking, and invigorating group discussions on innovations in the field.

Our keynote presentations will provide critical insights for everyone working to improve healthcare quality and patient outcomes. On Monday, Nov. 9th, Dr. Carolyn Clancy, Chief Medical Officer of the Veterans Health Administration, will highlight the VA’s use of academic detailing to address the epidemic of opioid overdose and misuse to save veteran’s lives. On Tuesday, Nov. 10th, Dr. Don Goldmann, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, will provide his insights on how to engage front-line clinicians in committing to change – drawing on IHI’s years of experience in promoting patient safety.

Many questions about academic detailing still need to be explored, new ideas generated, and connections made. We need to foster solution-based discussion from a wide range of voices, representing clinical education, public health, practice transformation, government, the non-profit sector, hospital networks, academic institutions, and others. But the most important ingredient for the success of this event is you.

Join us as we work together to discover solutions, connect you with others that can amplify your impact and elevate your work, and share your experiences and insights on the best ways to navigate a rapidly-changing healthcare landscape. We hope you’ll join us this November 9th and 10th, and that you’ll help us spread the news about this unique, transformative event. See you in November!

Bevin K. Shagoury, Communications & Ed. Director

Tags: Conference, Training

The NaRCAD team is heading into October with an afterglow from our latest 2-day training session with a truly dynamic group of outreach educators. Each new group of trainees inspires our team with their plans to use their new skills for innovative clinical education programming.

​This fall’s training class will pursue a range of goals in their programs, including:

• promoting provider awareness of diabetes management programs
• increasing Hepatitis C screening and testing for veterans
• increasing primary care referrals for mammography screening
• reducing antibiotic overprescribing, and
• increasing provider cultural competency when serving HIV+ patients who have been formerly incarcerated.

With attendees representing diverse geographic regions such as South Carolina, Norway, Washington State, and beyond, we were rewarded by this group’s eagerness to learn and to share fresh, new ideas on how to make our successful program even stronger.

Our program had a few new highlights to share, too—including an engaging presentation on theories of behavior change, led by Arielle Mather, MPH, NaRCAD’s Education & Training Manager. Setting the stage during Day 1 of our program, this foundational presentation reviewed behavior change models and theories that inform the practice of academic detailing, including Motivational Interviewing and the Theory of Planned Behavior. The presentation was met with enthusiasm and appreciation by trainees and facilitators alike, and many trainees requested more time to talk about these theories during breakout sessions.

Another new element of our program provided dedicated time on Day 2 for a lively group discussion on personalized support from NaRCAD. Trainees, staff, and facilitators brainstormed as a group the ways that NaRCAD could continue to bolster an active learning community through virtual resources, e-news, sharing of best practices, partner modeling, and 1:1 consultation.  As a final new feature of our program, we created time during the personalized support session for more role-play practice. Participants who wanted additional support prior to their final, recorded detailing session had the option to head to a breakout room and receive additional, personalized practice time with an expert facilitator.

As we start planning for our Spring 2016 AD Techniques Training program, we have many new ideas to implement, trainee-to-expert introductions to make, and best practices to feature. As NaRCAD enters our 5th year and prepares for our 3rd annual conference, we hope you’ll join our community of experts leading the way to improving health outcomes with engaging, clinical outreach education.

by Arielle Mather, MPH, Education & Training Manager

Tags: Conference, International, Jerry Avorn, Opioid Safety 

On November 13th and 14th, 2014 NaRCAD hosted the Second International Conference on Academic Detailing. The focus of this year’s conference was on educational outreach in an era of rapid health care reform, with perspectives from prominent figures in government, research, and business. The conference explored a pressing clinical theme on each day, including presentations of academic detailing programs currently addressing these topics in the field.

After Dr. Jerry Avorn, NaRCAD’s co-director, opened the conference with a review of the past, present, and future of academic detailing, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Maryland Secretary of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, discussed the challenges of improving health care and outcomes for the residents of his state. Jean Slutsky, Chief Engagement and Dissemination Officer of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) reviewed the key principles for effectively communicating research results that improve patient health outcomes.

The clinical theme for Day 1 was prescription opioid use and overuse. Dr. Harry Chen, Vermont Secretary of the Agency of Human Services set the stage by reviewing the origins of current problems with opioid use and sharing details of his state’s initiatives for prescribing pain medication. This talk was followed by an interactive panel session that highlighted two academic detailing programs (in South Carolina and New Mexico) seeking to reduce opioid overuse and abuse. Small group breakout sessions allowed for more detailed conversation about these programs and other specific topics.

Day 2 of the conference began with an overview of the business case for evidence based practice, presented by Dr. Troyen Brennan, Chief Medical Officer of CVS Health. Daniel Wolfson of the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, followed with a presentation on the Choosing Wisely campaign, which is designed to engage clinicians in the critical questions of how to make healthcare safer and more efficient. Dr. Alice Bonner of Northeastern University began the conversation of the day 2 clinical theme: antipsychotic medication use in long term care. After Dr. Bonner’s introduction, two ongoing academic detailing programs (in Massachusetts and Saskatchewan, Canada) aimed at addressing this problem shared their insights.

The challenge of sustaining academic detailing programs was addressed by Frank May, who has successfully implemented programs in multiple settings internationally. Dr. Madeleine Biondolillo, Associate Commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, made the final presentation, reviewing how academic detailing fits in with the other approaches that the state uses to improve health. In addition to the formal sessions, conference attendees from 15 US states, Canada, Europe, and Australia had a chance to interact informally, share ideas about academic detailing, and develop connections that will help support increased collaboration in the future.

The third installment of this AHRQ funded conference series will be held next year in November 2015. Finalized dates and registration information will be announced in the coming months. If you would like specific slide sets from any of the conference presentations, please email us.