An Interview with Johnathan Goree, MD Director of Chronic Pain and Opioid Stewardship University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences NaRCAD Training Alumnus by Kristina Stefanini, Program Coordinator at NaRCAD Tags: Detailing Visits, Opioid Safety, Training NaRCAD: Thanks for talking with me today! Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you ended up in pain management? Johnathan Goree: I’m from Arkansas originally. After completing college at Washington University in St. Louis, medical school and residency at Cornell, and a pain medicine fellowship at Emory, I was recruited to start the chronic pain division at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences – 2 miles away from where I went to high school. I’m proud to work in Arkansas; Arkansas is such a poor and rural state, so we don’t often have the resources that other states have. I went into anesthesiology because I wanted to be the best prepared doctor for an emergency, but I moved into pain medicine because I missed the 1-on-1 patient contact and longitudinal patient care. Here are some other things that lead me into pain medicine. After getting my wisdom teeth removed, I was given too much fentanyl during the procedure resulting in being given Narcan to wake up. That was the first time in my life I experienced 10/10 pain. It allowed me to understand how pain can completely dominate someone’s consciousness. I am also passionate about pain management in minority communities. Many in those communities feel that their pain is undertreated, and evidence backs that up. NaRCAD: As a physician, what are some of the barriers that detailers may have talking to clinicians about pain management? How can these be navigated? Johnathan Goree: Every physician will say the number one barrier is time. While most physicians are excited to learn about anything that will improve patient care, unfortunately, physicians are usually not in control of their schedule.
NaRCAD: How can clinicians act as champions in an academic detailing campaign? Johnathan Goree: One way physicians can help is with the crafting of educational materials. Physicians know how physicians think and can help by crafting a message that may better catch attention. Another is by dedicating time to answer follow-up questions from detailers and other clinicians. In my field of chronic pain management, detailers that don't have a clinical background may not know how to answer questions on specific off-label situations or treatment of specific pains. A follow-up visit or call with a clinician can help with that. NaRCAD: Anything else you’d like to add for our readers? Johnathan Goree: More praise for you guys – your course is excellent! Really understanding the science and method behind academic detailing made me excited to be a part of it. I hope more physicians engage both as detailers and as champions. I think it’s really important. Biography.
Johnathan Goree, MD, Director of Chronic Pain and Opioid Stewardship University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Board certified in anesthesiology and pain medicine, Dr. Johnathan Goree received his Bachelor of Arts in biology from Washington University in St. Louis. He then moved to New York City where he completed both his medical degree and a residency in anesthesiology at the Weill College of Medicine at Cornell University. Following his time in Manhattan, he completed a fellowship in chronic pain medicine at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2014, Dr. Goree returned home to Little Rock, Arkansas to join the faculty at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences where he serves as the Director of the Chronic Pain Division and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology. He primarily focuses on the treatment of chronic pain conditions using opiate sparing, minimally invasive techniques. His specific research interests include complex regional pain syndrome, neuromodulation, and the effects of opioid education initiatives on patient outcomes.
0 Comments
An Interview with Victoria Adewumi, MA, Community Liason, City of Manchester Health Department NaRCAD Training Alumna by Kayland Arrington, MPH, Program Manager at NaRCAD Tags: Detailing Visits, Opioid Safety, Program Management, Training NaRCAD: How did you get into AD? How was the Manchester team formed? Victoria: I was very interested in community outreach and improving the health and well-being of families! I had cursory experience with substance use disorder management and had to jump in with both feet. It really helped having other detailers on the team that NaRCAD trained that I could lean on. The other detailers constantly provided support, and one helped open the door for me at her health system to speak with clinicians. She even provided me talking points that previously worked for her so I could walk into my first appointment feeling confident. NaRCAD: What has your experience been as a detailer who does not have clinical experience but who does have public health expertise? Is someone able to be effective as an academic detailer without as much prior clinical training? Victoria: My experience has been extremely positive! I care about community, and I thought this was a great opportunity to gain new expertise in this field. I’ve always felt that a community perspective is needed for us to be able to leverage our impact in this field. The NaRCAD Academic Detailing techniques training was fantastic in helping me build tools to be able to speak well and motivate clinicians around medication-assisted treatment (MAT). My goal as an individual detailer is always to present myself as being on the same team as clinicians. I really see detailing as having a solution for clinicians, rather than simply trying to sell them an idea. NaRCAD: Was there a time when a clinician presented pushback or obstacles that made it difficult to get your message across? Victoria: Some clinicians seemed to have already decided whether they were going to be on board or not before I even met with them. I had to feel strong and confident in the skills that I have. When I meet with a clinician, I always frame it as “I’m coming in as a representative of the community. There’s a crisis in our community, and you, as a provider, are a key part of the solution. How can we get you involved?” and “What kinds of things can you tell us that we haven’t even thought about before?” We need everyone’s participation if we’re going to change the tide of the city of Manchester, and clinicians are a vital part of that.
NaRCAD: You have mentioned the power of the team of detailers--can you tell us how the Manchester AD came to be so strong and effective? Victoria: I didn’t know any of the other detailers before the project. The NaRCAD training was great as an introduction to the work and to each other. We all had a sense of hope that was immediately apparent. We have the privilege of doing work that helps save lives and because of this attitude, there was a sense of camaraderie right away. We’ve been effective because our AD team is strong, and it was strong because we were intentional about building bonds. During the implementation period, we never went more than a month without checking in with each other, and sharing successes and challenges. I don’t think I would have enjoyed the process as much if I didn’t have this amazing AD team of colleagues. We’ve had incredible success in building a team of detailers who are all committed to and excited about the work of connecting with frontline clinicians to improve patient care around opioid safety. NaRCAD: How would you recommend other programs go about recruiting those people that are equally committed and excited? Victoria: That’s a great question! I didn’t necessarily have an opioid response background, but I’ve always cared about communities. That desire to help others makes a great detailer. The trainings can teach the clinical content, but that element of wanting to improve people’s lives is the anchor of a strong AD team, and will resonate with the providers you’ll be detailing. I would then advise new sites to do the important work of helping their detailers to build strong relationships and a sense of teamwork right from the beginning. Those relationships will support everything, from good communication with clinicians, to a renewed sense of purpose in doing the work, which shields against burn out moving forward. Consistent opportunities to check in and connect between AD team members can’t be overemphasized—it truly made me feel that I was never in this alone; I was always working as part of something bigger than myself. Biography Victoria Adewumi, MA Community Liaison City of Manchester Health Department Victoria Adewumi is a Community Liaison with the Manchester Public Health Department. Victoria primarily helps coordinate and staff programming of the Manchester Community School Project, a model that facilitates better health for Manchester residents through place-based interventions. Victoria serves Manchester residents by linking them to partners in the health, social service, business, non-profit, and faith communities and by engaging community members in resident leadership and equity activities. Victoria also participates in efforts to serve refugees and newcomers in New Hampshire through both direct service and community-building initiatives. Victoria holds Bachelor and Master of Arts Degrees in Political Science from the University of New Hampshire. Featuring: Mary Nagy, MPH, RN/BSN, Public Health Detailer, HIV Care & Prevention Unit, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, NaRCAD Training Alumnus Tags: Detailing Visits, Health Disparities, HIV/AIDS, Sexual Health, Stigma NaRCAD: Thanks for joining us, Mary! You’re a Public Health Detailer in the HIV Care & Prevention Unit at the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services. Before we talk about how you got into your current role, can you tell us what you were doing before that? Mary Nagy: I was an ER nurse for five years. During that time I worked all over the country in lots of different settings, but I noticed the same patterns playing out no matter what city I was in. I was seeing patients daily who were either in the last hours of their lives or needing immediate life-saving interventions as a result of medical problems that might have been avoided entirely through basic services or preventative medicine. The longer I worked ER, the more clearly I saw the effect of systemic forces and environment on health, their unequal distribution across society, and the more I wanted to find a way to work towards health equity. I decided to study public health, and earned my master’s degree in Environmental Health Science at the University of Michigan. In addition to giving me the opportunity to design and carry out my own research, the program I did had a strong health policy component, which helped me add to the understanding of healthcare delivery I formed during the time I spent at the bedside. NaRCAD: Tell us what interested you about your current position and what a “day in the life” of a detailer looks like for you. Mary Nagy: I saw the job posted and was immediately interested in it because I think detailing, especially on the topic of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), is a really effective way to strengthen prevention infrastructure and affect health outcomes. Clinicians are under a lot of pressure and I was drawn to the idea of being a source of relevant, high quality, trusted information. The detailing program here in Michigan is comparatively young and its development is ongoing. Fortunately for me, lots of folks have been willing to help! I've drawn from a broad range of sources has been really helpful during detailing visits, because the needs of providers are so diverse; folks are asking about billing and coding for PrEP visits, standing orders, HIV risk assessment, nuts and bolts of services offered by our state lab, STI screening and trends, and financial supports for PrEP, best practices with PrEP initiation and follow up, and more. I’ve been working hard to broaden my knowledge base, but also to identify resources for questions I don’t know the answers to and topics I’m weaker on. NaRCAD: Why are you passionate about HIV prevention, and why is academic detailing for HIV prevention so important? Mary Nagy: Even though I’m very new to the field, I think it’s a very exciting time to be doing this work because I do believe it is possible to end the HIV epidemic in the US within the next few decades. Racial and ethnic minorities continue to be underrepresented in PrEP utilization and overrepresented in new HIV diagnoses, and I want my work to contribute to correcting this. I think PrEP can be a tool for health justice and being part of that is valuable to me. NaRCAD: You’ve mentioned environment a couple of times. Can you tell us how environment is connected to HIV contraction and prevention, if at all? Mary Nagy: I think that’s where my mind goes, because I’ve seen the powerful effect of environment on health, and this is certainly true on a population level. I never want to diminish the power and agency of individuals, but everyone operates under multiple layers of forces. Examples of this include policy, especially the persistent legacy of overtly racist housing policies; the “war on drugs” and resulting mass incarceration; or a justice system that data shows us doesn’t work in the same ways for everyone. These systemic forces, applied to millions of people over many decades, result in the disparities we see in HIV rates, overall health, wealth, and many other areas. Increasing access to PrEP means we can mitigate some risk for folks who might have more exposure due to the environmental context in which they live. For Michigan, one of the ways detailing can help make PrEP easier to access is increasing geographic availability. A large portion of our state is rural, and many counties do not currently have a known PrEP provider. Another challenge is, of course, cost. The cost of PrEP and associated visits and screening tests is a policy issue, and while we hope and expect to see cost come down in the future, in the current landscape, it's important to prioritize educating providers and their staff on available financial supports and how to apply them, so cost doesn’t keep people who can benefit from PrEP from getting and maintaining access. NaRCAD: In addition to geography and coverage, what are some other barriers you’ve encountered when doing academic detailing for HIV prevention? Mary Nagy: Stigma around HIV and other STIs is a big issue. We know that when providers talk openly with patients about their sexual health, they’re better able to accurately assess risk for HIV and STIs and screen and treat appropriately, but those conversations are not happening with enough regularity. Rates of STIs like gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis have been rising, and continue to increase, so there's a lot of opportunity there. NaRCAD: How has detailing been received overall? Are providers open to education on PrEP? When I think about why detailing is important and why I’m doing it, the first thing that comes to mind is a recent survey of primary care providers MDHHS carried out in Southeast Michigan. Providers were asked which supports would best help them to incorporate PrEP into their practice, and "education" was by far the most frequent answer. In addition to the research I’ve seen indicating detailing is an effective intervention to change provider behavior, it's clear that the providers themselves agree that education is important. If we can work with providers to make PrEP available and easy to initiate and maintain, the protection it offers from HIV can improve health outcomes for patients at high risk. Biography Mary Nagy, MPH, RN/BSN Public Health Detailer, HIV Care & Prevention Unit Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Mary is the public health detailer for the State of Michigan and conducts direct outreach with medical providers to support HIV prevention strategies and stigma reduction statewide. She received her master’s degree in Environmental Health Science from the University of Michigan School of Public Health where as a Graham Sustainability Fellow her research focused on municipal water quality and affordability. Mary also has several years of experience working in as an Emergency Department RN in trauma centers across the US and her work in health equity is informed by her time as a frontline health worker. A ROADMAP for Detailing Success: Improved Outcomes for the Medicaid Population in Oklahoma12/7/2018 Guest Blogger: Jacki Travers, PharmD Clinical Academic Detailing Pharmacist Pharmacy Management Consultants NaRCAD Training Alumnus Tags: Detailing Visits, Mental Health, Pediatrics In June of 2015, I had never even heard the term “academic detailing.” If you’d asked me to define it, I might have said it had something to do with the relationship between teachers and their cars. Little did I know that I was about to become an academic detailer, embarking on an exciting, rewarding, and sweaty-palmed journey to bring evidence-based materials to providers across the state of Oklahoma.
The Oklahoma Medicaid population is mostly under age 21. Detailing topics have included treatment of ADHD, use of atypical antipsychotic medications, and decreasing the use of antibiotics for treatment of upper respiratory infections. We are a small program by comparison, having one full-time detailer since 2015. We added one quarter-time detailer within the last year. I will share some specific activities that worked for us, which creates a ROADMAP that has served us well and may help you as you begin or enhance your detailing efforts. R – Review When each set of materials neared completion, we asked the experienced NaRCAD staff to review our materials. Having an outside source helped clarify any confusion and identify ways to help the AD visit flow more naturally. O – Objectivity In identifying providers, we were making a bit of a judgement about their prescribing. As a detailer, I found it unhelpful to bring these judgements into the detailing visit. It is important for providers to see detailers as an ally for change rather than a source of punishment or criticism. A – Acceptance We surveyed providers’ acceptance of the program with each AD visit by asking them to evaluate the detailer and the materials. We also asked if they were willing to participate in future visits and recommend the program to colleagues. D – Define Defining the expected care gaps helped guide creation of our key messages. The treatment guidelines for ADHD are well established and remain unchanged since 2011. Comparing these guidelines to national and state patterns gave us a starting point for developing key messages. In addition to published guidelines, evaluation measures such as the Healthcare Data and Information Set (HEDIS) were very helpful. Doing this examination on the front end helped us begin with the end in mind and ensured we collected data we needed from the start. M – Motivational Interviewing Motivational interviewing (MI) is a communication style that is used to modify behavior. MI techniques helped us avoid some of the pitfalls that can accompany potentially confrontational conversations. A – Appealing Graphics We use Adobe Creative Cloud, which we find it to be very user-friendly. For someone with no graphic design experience, YouTube training videos were very helpful. We also use Pixabay as a source for ready-made graphics. All materials are open source and royalty free. We looked at the graphics used by other programs and even materials distributed by pharmaceutical representatives. Having appealing graphics is necessary for any AD program. P – People Having professional mentoring has helped move our program to the next level. Specifically, our detailers received invaluable preparation from the excellent NaRCAD Training Series. Moreover, I never miss the chance to learn from all the presenters and breakout participants at the International Conference each year. We are encouraged by the outcomes we have seen to date. The ADHD campaign produced a 58.33% reduction in medication claims for the very young (age 0-4) and cost savings of more than $226,000 across all ages. The antipsychotic campaign produced a 19.51% reduction in medication claims across all ages with associated savings of more than $365,000. I hope this snapshot of our program demonstrates that even small AD programs can show sizeable improvements in health outcomes and improve utilization of healthcare resources. Now, more than three years later, my understanding of academic detailing is much deeper and continues to grow with each new challenge. I was not completely wrong in my definition though: I absolutely see myself as a teacher and I certainly spend a lot of time in the car!
Opening Up the Conversation: An Interview with the Bell County, Kentucky Academic Detailing Program10/26/2018 Featuring: Robin Tuttle, RN, ER Nurse, Academic Detailer, NaRCAD Training Alumnus Interview by Kabaye Diriba, Senior Program Analyst, NACCHO, in partnership with NaRCAD Tags: Detailing Visits, LOOPR, Opioid Safety, Rural AD Programs EDITOR'S NOTE: Bell County, Kentucky, was the first site of four selected for a 2018 pilot program of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), NACCHO (the National Association of City and County Health Officials), and NaRCAD (The National Resource Center for Academic Detailing). This exciting pilot program focused on community-level work with local public health departments to develop customized interventions to reduce opioid overdose and death. Four sites experiencing significant public health problems related to opioids were selected to be trained in academic detailing; those trained health professionals then conducted 1:1 field visits with front line clinicians to impact behavior around prescribing, treatment referrals, and patient care, all within a rural area. As year 1 comes to a close, we’re showcasing successes from the field. Thanks for talking with us about your on this pilot project with NACCHO, the CDC, and NaRCAD, working to support local efforts in your community. Robin: What we’ve been doing has been a breath of fresh air! I'm proud to be a part of it, and happy to help in any way that I can. Tell us how local detailers were selected for this project—what kinds of professional backgrounds make up your diverse team members? Robin: I was asked by a co-worker, another detailer, who thought “I know this really outgoing, outspoken person that might fit the team.” Our team is made up of people that have hands-on knowledge about the opioid epidemic. I’ve been in healthcare since 1988 and I’ve been living here in Bell County for 30 years. I started working as a nurse aid at one of the local hospitals and then went on to college to get my RN. Our detailing team all had a common interest when we got together. What elements of the training do you apply most often during your visits when delivering your key messages? Robin: What helped me the most was that last day of training when we were practicing academic detailing. Asking open-ended questions is the most important thing. You get so wrapped up in wanting to deliver your messages, but it’s not necessary that you get all of your messages in on that first visit. You may feel rushed to deliver all your messages if you’re afraid you’re not going to make it back in the door, but what I found is the more I met with doctors, and the more I said things like, “What have you seen in your practice?” or “Tell me about a patient…” or “Talk to me about the problems you’re having…”, the more I saw the conversation open up. That’s something I really picked up on the second day of training—learning to turn it back around and asking [needs assessment] questions. Let them get involved, and let me really listen to what they have to say; that way it'll help contribute to the conversation going forward. The opioid epidemic can be a sensitive topic. When you approach clinicians to discuss their behaviors around the opioid epidemic, how are you generally received? What do clinicians in Bell County see as major challenges in your community? Robin: Almost everyone I spoke to was very receptive about everything that we talked about, including all 5 of our campaign’s key messages. Because treatment in this area is slim to none, it all circled back to, “What if I find someone [a patient] that has opioid use disorder? How can you help me?” Doctors here are telling me that even people that have overdosed and come to the hospital are having a hard time [getting access to treatment]. There are places that are not in Bell County, but we would need some sort of transportation system that could get patients to those places. What challenges do Bell County clinicians face, along with being busy, when trying to support their patients who are prescribed opioids? Robin: Clinicians are often challenged in identifying symptoms of someone with opioid use disorder. Also, sometimes patients are sent to a pain [management] clinic, but those don’t always work. In our community, we can send them to the local Suboxone clinic which is accessible and easy to get to. When it comes to Suboxone, you cannot look at it as an “all-or-nothing” approach. That’s a challenge here in Bell County, trying to get the community to know that abstinence is not always the answer, and sometimes people might have to take some form of medication for life to get the wiring back together that they've already lost because of their disorder. I also understand some of the doctors are adamant about their current patients that have been taking these medications for 25 years for this chronic pain, which they don’t think they can do much about, and they’re concerned about this newer generation [of patients] coming in. What have been some of the more rewarding exchanges you’ve had with clinicians you’ve met with? Robin: I've had a lot of good visits, but this one sticks out in my mind: there was one clinician where I felt immediately like I was going to get the “brush off”. But I ended up staying for an hour and a half! I sat there with this doctor, who I’ve had a challenging professional relationship with historically, and he ended up talking to me at length about patients he was seeing, and those he had inherited. I was so excited that I’d spoken with him for so long, and that I’d covered all 5 of our campaign’s key messages. I walked away from that visit with questions to follow up on that I wanted to be able to answer for him at a future visit, and I felt like I made a new friend. What do you want to tell new detailers who are just starting to form teams and try this kind of 1:1 outreach education model out with clinicians in their communities? What piece of advice would you have appreciated when you started your first detailing visits? Robin: Try not to get discouraged! After we divided up all the physicians, we started making phone calls. That can be discouraging. I found out we actually had more luck stopping by. We called it the “drug representative look”: you dress up, put your badge on that says academic detailer, have the clipboard and all the paperwork, and you look professional. I really found out that I had more luck by just walking in and saying, “Do you have a minute?” Don’t get discouraged if you're making calls all day long and they keep putting you off, because receptionists are making appointments all day long too and it’s hard to explain what you’re doing over the telephone. We definitely felt discouraged during the first couple of weeks of outreach. We were feeling like we hit a brick wall, and that’s when we coined the term "drive-by” detailing visits. We started driving around and just showing up at offices. So, get out and drive if you can’t get through over the phone. Go with a card and introduce yourself. They [clinicians] all want to talk about opioids. You'll be surprised when you get in the room with them and they start talking. Ideas? Comments? Questions? Sound off on this blog in the comments section below!
Tags: Detailing Visits, Evidence-Based Medicine, Materials Development, Jerry Avorn Here’s the good news: academic detailing is becoming so widely accepted that everyone wants to help provide the evidence that is disseminated. That’s also the bad news; worrisome examples range from the grotesque to the sinister. One eminent health policy expert wanted to know how much it would cost to put together a nationwide academic detailing program (my heart leaped) that would be underwritten by the pharmaceutical industry (dammit). Prescription drug management (PBM) companies now offer so-called academic detailing services as part of their contracts with payors to oversee drug choices and spending. Sounds good until one realizes that a large chunk of PBM revenue come from payments by manufacturers to move market share to their products. So much for communicating evidence that is neutral, unbiased, and non-commercial. You’d think we’d have learned our lesson by now. Do universities or insurers or government fail to offer enough continuing education about prescribing? No problem, drugmakers will be more than happy to fill the gap, either for free or at amazingly low cost…. often with really great food. That local clinical expert who shows up at Grand Rounds to provide an overview of all the new treatments for diabetes, at no cost to the hospital? Don’t ask who’s paying him to be there. And those convenient smartphone apps that provide so much handy dosing information for any drug you can think of? All you have to do is read the commercial messages that pop up on your way to the data, as the vendor promises its pharmaceutical sponsors the chance to "embed your brand message at multiple points across the care continuum." There is a solution to the concern about who’s providing the content for academic detailing programs, and it’s much easier than figuring out whether a particular Facebook ad is brought to you by a Russian bot. Just expect that any purveyor of AD information will reveal clearly all the financial ties it and its authors have with any drug or device maker, in relation to program sponsorship as well as the creation and editing of the clinical content. After years of being misled about hidden data on adverse events or failed studies, we’ve developed a higher set of expectations about disclosing all information about clinical trials, and the need to reveal authors’ financial ties for published studies. Those same higher standards must also be applied to academic detailing programs, so that its audiences will know whether the material is the carefully vetted work of a team of unconflicted reviewers who don’t work for any manufacturers, or is instead yet another terribly sophisticated new way to market particular products. Want more? Peruse the archive of Jerry's pieces here on DETAILS. _____________________________________________________________ Biography.
Jerry Avorn, MD | NaRCAD Co-Director Dr. Avorn is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics (DoPE) at Brigham & Women's Hospital. A general internist, geriatrician, and drug epidemiologist, he pioneered the concept of academic detailing and is recognized internationally as a leading expert on this topic and on optimal medication use, particularly in the elderly. Read more. Guest Blogger: Joseph Leishman Academic Detailer/Masters in Public Health Candidate Center for Clinical Management Research, Ann Arbor VA The University of Michigan School of Public Health NaRCAD Training Alumnus Tags: Cancer, Detailing Visits, Materials Development, Training NaRCAD: How did you get into AD? What were you doing before? Joe: I’m a graduate student at The University of Michigan School of Public Health studying epidemiology. As a student I started working at the Ann Arbor VA Center for Clinical Management Research on a lung cancer-screening project. Our project involves 8 different VA sites across the country. As we shifted into an implementation phase, academic detailing was selected as an implementation method. I transitioned to an academic detailer role because of my background in epidemiology, my understanding of lung cancer screening (LCS), and my ability to communicate these principles. I attended the NaRCAD academic detailing techniques training and things took off from there! NaRCAD: Why is AD for lung cancer screening so important? Joe: Lung cancer screening can be more complex and complicated compared to other preventative services, and most primary care physicians have very limited time to discuss lung cancer screening with patients. There are a number of potential downsides to screening – false positives, overdiagnosis, invasive procedures, and complications from invasive procedures. The benefits of the screening outweigh the challenges, and we have developed a tool for doctors to quickly evaluate a patient’s lung cancer risk, facilitate shared decision making, and make personalized screening recommendations. NaRCAD: Tell us about the lung cancer screening detailing aid and related tools that you made with NaRCAD’s support. How was the process of developing the detailing aid? Joe: Our detailing aid contains background information on lung cancer screening and some of the key evidence behind our tool. It also outlines some of the reasons and benefits behind using this risk-based approach. We tried to keep the detailing aid simple enough that doctors could quickly understand the concepts with little or no additional explanation. This was our group’s first attempt at making something like this. We worked with NaRCAD during the creation of the detailing aid to improve the clinical content, layout, and language. There was a lot of trial and error to create the detailing aid. We ended up going through 10 versions before it was finalized. NaRCAD: How did you decide what information was most important to put on your detailing aid? Joe: Initially, we started out with too much information. It was too complicated and wordy to effectively communicate our message. We tested it out with our team to see if our message was clear. It was obvious when sections of detailing aid didn’t work well. We really had to focus on narrowing down the main evidence and messages we wished to convey. We used the primary lung cancer screening evidence from the US Preventative Task Force and the National Lung Screening Trial. Our tool goes a step beyond screening eligibility to look at individual risk, life expectancy, and patient preferences, which help providers get past some of the difficulties and complexities of lung cancer screening. NaRCAD: How does your website complement the detailing aid when you are 1:1 detailing? Joe: A link to the tool is embedded in the Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS), the EMR system that the VA uses. However, it can be also accessed outside the VA with a URL. What I typically do is I have PCPs pull up the website in their workspace after going through the detailing aid. I have providers role play with a sample patient, and I demonstrate how the tool could be used for that specific patient. Using the actual web tool in a detailing meeting really helps to reinforce our message. We feel like it increases the likelihood that it’ll be adopted in an actual clinical practice. NaRCAD: How have clinicians been responding to your campaign? Joe: So far there has been a decent response from the doctors we have worked with. Some of the doctors in the VA have met with detailers before which makes the initial contact easy. However, the most majority of the doctors I have met were receptive to my visits. We’ve been tracking the use of our tool before and after academic detailing at a site level. We don’t have exact numbers, but there has been an increase between before and after AD. We’d be happy to share more complete data in a future blog post. NaRCAD: That'd be terrific, we'd love to share that when it's ready! What other reflections do you have from this process that you'd like to share with our community? Joe: Academic detailing is a new approach for our group. It has been a real learning experience for discovering what does and doesn’t work and how to best address provider needs. For me, going through this process has been a lot of fun. I love talking with doctors about their struggles and being able to offer a tool that can help them better handle lung cancer screening with their patients. Guest Blogger: Monica Mais, MSN, FNP Family Nurse Practioner/Academic Detailer California Opioid Safety Network, Fairchild Medical Clinic NaRCAD Training Alumnus Tags: Detailing Visits, Opioid Safety, Rural AD Programs, Training In 2011, I went from 15 years as an Emergency Room nurse to a new role as a Family Nurse Practitioner in a rural healthcare setting. I couldn’t believe the amounts of prescribed opioids that were coming out of our little clinic—the average chronic pain patient was receiving 240 Morphine Equivalents/day (MEDs), and many of these patients had been receiving these medications for years without oversight. In 2013 I introduced an evidence-based protocol and policy for safe prescribing of Opiates for Chronic Non-Cancer Pain (CNCP).
However, patients who could not obtain opiates from our clinic quickly moved on to the clinic across town. This influx of opiate seeking patients was reason for concern from those receiving clinics. My colleagues and I opened our doors to neighboring clinics and providers and began sharing our policies and successes. Many other area clinics started adapting our policies to their own practice, reducing their opiate prescribing as well. We formed a coalition called Siskiyou Against Rx Abuse (SARA), and based on our previous successes, we were all shocked to see data showing our county was among the highest opioid prescriptions per capita in California, and had a high overdose rate per capita, despite our efforts. Clearly, more needed to be done! Our coalition facilitator, Maggie Shepard, RN, along with our medical director, Dr. Sam Rabinowitz, and myself were all invited to attend training to become Academic Detailers in San Francisco with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, a partner with NaRCAD, the National Resource Center for Academic Detailing. We did scripting and role-playing throughout the training, learning the important social marketing and communication skills needed to conduct a personalized visit with a provider where the goal would be to change behaviors to continue to promote safe opioid prescribing, Naloxone, and Buprenorphine out to providers in our area. During the training, I was videotaped during a practice role-play, which was very helpful, as it reminded me to speak more slowly, and to organize my key messages and talking points. After the training, getting our detailing program into the field involved a step-by-step process. Here are important things to consider that have worked well for my detailing process:
I plan to continue AD throughout 2018. I believe we have experiences that we can share to encourage our colleagues to make positive changes in in their prescribing habits. Academic Detailing works due to mutual respect of one another’s experiences, professionalism, and willingness to receive new information—it’s an excellent way to foster change within a system! Biography
Monica Mais, MSN, FNP Family Nurse Practioner/Academic Detailer, Fairchild Medical Clinic Monica Mais is a Board Certified Family Nurse Practitioner working at an FQHC in Siskiyou County, located in far Northern California on the Oregon border. She is a founding member of Siskiyou Against Rx Abuse, member of the California Opioid Safety Network and an X-Waived prescriber, working with chronic pain and opioid dependent patients. As a former Emergency Room Nurse for 15 years, many of Monica’s shifts involved witnessing overdoses, drug-seeking behavior, violence, desperation, and healthcare worker burnout. It had been escalating every year to its current crisis level, and Monica wanted to be part of the solution to this heartbreaking epidemic. Questions on this piece for Monica Mais? Contact her at mmais@fairchildmed.org, or leave your thoughts in the discussion forum below. NaRCAD & Training Facilitator Loren Regier, BSP, BA Tags: Detailing Visits, International Our team's training facilitator Loren Regier recently shared these pearls of wisdom about talking (and listening more) to front-line clinicians. In 1:1 academic detailing visits, detailers have the challenge of finding the right balance between sharing information and acquiring insight into a clinician's practice. It's the kind of balance an expert detailer can execute well, but how? Loren's tips on talking more when necessary to draw out the clinician's needs by asking good questions, and toggling to actively listening and talking less to understand clinicians' biases, are below. Talk More: -If someone is at the point of having “bought in” to a concept/idea, they may just need information. In this situation, it's okay to talk a little more, especially if you sense the “thirst for relevant information.” Talk Less: -If, however, a person has not yet bought in to an idea, it is often more important to talk less, or move towards equalizing the talking. -They will reject too much information that they don’t believe. But in discussing, there is the chance to explore ambivalence, raise doubts, and compare notes. -In all cases, learn to listen and listen well. -I What quick tips would you share with other detailers on assessing needs? Sound off in the comments section below! Biography. Loren Regier, BA, BSP
Clinical Director, Academic Detailing Service, Centre for Effective Practice, Program Coordinator, RxFiles Academic Detailing, U of S, College of Pharmacy/Nutrition, Facilitator, Educational Outreach/Academic Detailing Training | Loren is the Program Coordinator of the RxFiles Academic Detailing Service in Saskatoon, SK, Canada. Loren has guided the development of this provincial academic detailing service since the first pilot project began in 1997. Loren is active as a member of the Canadian Academic Detailing Collaboration and provides training and consultation to various programs and initiatives. Read more. Tags: Detailing Visits, Evaluation, Program Management The NaRCAD Team is excited to kick off the latest episode in our C.O.r.E. Podcast Series, this time featuring the insights of Program Director Rebecca Edelberg, MPH, from the Boston-based non-profit academic detailing organization Alosa Health, as she shares her experiences managing field programs in clinical outreach education. This episode's 15-minute interview with Rebecca hones in on the "how-to's" of strong AD program management, including:
Tune in here, and sound off on Twitter or in the comments section below with insights, questions for Rebecca, or topics you'd like to see featured on our next podcast. Learn more about Rebecca and Alosa Health below! Biography. Rebecca Edelberg, MPH, Program Director, Alosa Health Rebecca is responsible for providing technical and operational support to field staff, and for ensuring that field-based clinical education programs are executed to clients' satisfaction. Rebecca previously worked at Boston Medical Center implementing a clinical trial and as a consultant in the electronic medical records (EMR) industry, where she engaged in one-on-one clinician education. She has an undergraduate degree from Tufts University and a Masters in Public Health from Boston University with concentrations in Epidemiology and Health Policy. Learn more about Alosa Health's programs, clinical modules, and expert team on their website. As the Public Health Education Specialist for the WIC (Women, Infants & Children) program and the Opioid Task Force in Butte County, California, Stacy Piper, CLEC, acts as a regional liaison with the medical community as well as coalition's and various community partners. Learn more about Stacy in the bio at the end of this piece. Tags: Detailing Visits, Opioid Safety, Substance Use, Training NaRCAD: Hi, Stacy! Thanks for joining us. Tell us a little bit about your work—we understand you, like many folks in public health, wear multiple hats. As the Butte County Public Health Education Specialist for the WIC (Women, Infants & Children) program and the Opioid Task Force in Butte County, I act as a liaison with the medical community. I collaborate with hospitals, health care providers, public health programs, and community organizations to improve public health and continuity of care. NaRCAD: Talk to us about detailing for the opioid crisis—you do this 1/4th of your time. How did you get started? After providing educational detailing for the WIC Program funded at 30 hours a week, I was asked to be an Opioid Academic Detailer for Butte County. In preparation, I attended the Academic Detailer Training in San Francisco. The training provided by the CA Health Department, San Francisco Public Health Department's Substance Use Research Unit, and NaRCAD was one of the finest training experiences - even after the countless hours of extremely comprehensive training I received in the Pharmaceutical Industry. Regarding impact on a local level, it is indescribable how every interaction with a healthcare provider is beneficial. Academic Detailing (AD) is an equal exchange of information. I consider it a huge responsibility, and a privilege, to be an educator for doctors and medical professionals. I prefer the word “educator” instead of “detailer” because I have concerns that a “detailer” may be initially viewed as a salesperson. I love and respect that AD is not driven by attempting to influence medical professionals for personal gain. It’s all about helping providers improve health outcomes in patients with the entire focus of the conversation about the real people in their practice that need help. NaRCAD: Tell us a little about your background in pharma, and how this translates to your detailing work now. I was a Senior Executive Pharmaceutical Sales Representative for 15 years in Northern California, advocating for immunizations and promoting various prescription drugs. This provided first-hand experience of the astonishing evolution in the Medical, Pharmacy, and Insurance industries. Understanding the basic dynamics of medical offices has helped me navigate and gain access at a quicker pace for AD. Also, understanding the business acumen component of running a medical practice has proven to be valuable in my recent interactions. NaRCAD: You mentioned that you’re committed to providing value for clinicians and patients alike. Talk to us about how you share key messages with the clinicians you visit. In my experience, to truly influence the behavior of a highly-educated and experienced individual, you must come to the table with the goal of learning. With attentive listening, you ‘hear’ the medical professional, and process what you have learned. Your intuition will guide you to ask the appropriate, insightful questions needed to evaluate his/her priorities and challenges. This is a beautiful thing, because trust starts to blossom and the partnership has begun. You can then confidently tailor key messages, valuable resources and solutions that are closely tied to those needs and challenges you uncovered. You should begin to see the individual’s genuine desire to truly change behavior and habits. NaRCAD: Talking about opioids is a sensitive topic. What’s some of the typical pushback you get from clinicians you detail about opioid safety? The response to academic detailing really depends on the situation and the type of clinician and/or establishment I am working with. Sharing local opioid statistics compared to our state statistics is an eye opener! I try to paint real life pictures by telling true stories. For example, I’m honest about my own family members who were innocently caught up in this crisis, including the true story about the day my sister’s husband accidentally took his prescribed opioid medication twice. My sister lost her husband that day. NaRCAD: Along with telling true stories, how do you handle pushback and stay positive, encouraging clinicians to pivot? Time, or lack of time, is the biggest culprit in keeping physicians from attempting to personally assist in ending the addiction cycle for patients. I passionately believe clinicians need more time with people on opioids. It takes several visits with an office to start moving in the right direction. Working with the medical assistants, nurses, and/ office managers is a key component. They can often have influence, give advice or insight, and even advocate when you are not there. Also, I review our county’s Safe Prescribing Guidelines. If clinicians cannot institute all items in the guidelines, I ask providers to choose what they can commit to doing and to think about some specific patients they can work with. I also ask them to consider prescribing Naloxone for patients on high doses of opioids (above 50 morphine milligram equivalents). NaRCAD: What would you share with new detailers who are about to go into the field and use AD to tackle the opioid crisis? I have a few reminders and tips for detailers:
Biography.
Stacy M. Piper, CLEC, Public Health Educational Specialist Butte County California Public Health Department As a Public Health Education Specialist, Stacy was chosen to work with two CA State grant funded programs educating Medical Professionals, Hospitals and Community Organizations for the WIC Program and the Opioid Drug Abuse Prevention Program. She maintains an active involvement with the Butte County Opioid Task Force, as well as the Butte County Drug Addiction Prevention Coalition, ACE’s Coalition (Trauma Informed), Breastfeeding Roundtable Coalition, Butte County Breastfeeding Coalition, Mother Strong Coalition, and Perinatal Coalition. Stacy has had extensive training with the California Department of Public Health's Opioid Stewardship & Chronic Pain Detailing Program, ID Training, UCSD CLE (Certified Lactation Educator), Coalition & Equity Training, Advocacy Training and holds 14 years of ongoing training & certification in the Pharmaceutical Industry. She is a member of the team coordinating and orchestrating the 2018 Northern California Opioid Summit. Jerry Avorn, MD, Co-Director, NaRCAD Tags: Detailing Visits, Evidence-Based Medicine, Health Policy, Jerry Avorn, Medications, Opioid Safety Of all the medication use issues facing the U.S., the most pressing is of course that of opioid mis-prescribing. When the anatomy of that mis-use is dissected, it becomes clear that the principles and methods of academic detailing are especially well suited to addressing this crisis, for several reasons. First is the problem of information deficit: before the mid- to late-1990s, practical issues of the assessment and management of pain were often poorly covered (or not at all) in most medical school or residency training programs – so there’s a lot of good that can be accomplished by simple personalized knowledge transfer, to start with. Second is dealing with the contamination of dis-information: the growing documentation of the fact that sales reps for OxyContin, for example, actually under-stated the drug’s risks and over-stated its potential indications when describing their product to prescribers – distortions for which the company had to pay $600 million in penalties. Third is the fact that for this therapeutic category more than for most others, a prescriber’s attitudes and motivations play an especially important role. These can involve “non-scientific” issues such as:
There is ample evidence that simple “gotcha” letters accusing a prescriber of opioid over-use have no effect. Similarly, draconian restrictions imposed by governments or health care systems limiting the amount of opioid that can be prescribed to a given patient clearly run the risk of under-treating genuine pain – a grotesque example of health care rules that seem guaranteed to increase patients’ suffering. Evidence-based guidelines, such as those promulgated by the CDC, are fine as far as they go, but most doctors haven’t read them, and even fewer have integrated them into their practices. But a well-trained, skilled academic detailer can interact with a prescriber to understand just what issues lie behind the apparent misuse of opioids by that physician, and present a set of interactive messages tailored to those particular needs. This will involve constructing a personalized blend of new knowledge transfer, dis-information detoxification, practice facilitation (including help accessing Prescription Drug Monitoring Program data less burdensomely), accessing local resources for help in patients with opioid use disorder, and assistance with patient education. A similar approach could also be enormously helpful for encouraging naloxone prescribing and improving the care of patients with opioid use disorder, including medication-assisted treatment, where information deficits and attitudinal issues are even more prominent. Together, this kind of individualized outreach education can accomplish far more than mailed guidelines, accusatory nastygrams, or legal restrictions – and in doing so, do more to improve patient care and reduce preventable misery than can be expected from more old-fashioned interventions. Biography. Jerry Avorn, MD, Co-Director, NaRCAD Dr. Avorn is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics (DoPE) at Brigham & Women's Hospital. A general internist and drug epidemiologist, he pioneered the concept of academic detailing and is recognized internationally as a leading expert on this topic and on optimal medication use. Read more. Tags: Detailing Visits, HIV/AIDS, LOOPR, Opioid Safety, Training We've been staying busy here at NaRCAD this spring! With public health challenges like the opioid crisis, and the continued need for HIV prevention, the team here at NaRCAD has been on the road for 5 trainings in 6 weeks, and we're not stopping yet! On February 14th - 16th, 2018, NaRCAD joined the amazing teams at San Francisco Department of Public Health and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for an exciting initiative: A Public Health Detailing Institute on HIV PrEP and RAPID. Hosted in San Francisco's South Market neighborhood, 31 trainees attended, representing diverse public health departments from Texas, Connecticut, Alaska, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Mississippi, Michigan, Oregon, Nevada, Virginia, and beyond. These trainees joined the institute for a customized, 3-day event focusing on learning the techniques of academic detailing, along with showcasing best practices and success stories via special presentations and expert panels. This past month, from March 7th through April 4th, 2018, NaRCAD hit the road four more times, as part of an exciting 4-site pilot project in partnership with our terrific colleagues at the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and NACCHO (The National Association of County and City Health Officials). Upon identifying counties and cities with the highest burden of fatal and non-fatal opioid overdose and high prescribing rates, the CDC selected Bell County, Kentucky; Boone County, West Virginia; Manchester, New Hampshire; and Dayton, Ohio as 4 pilot sites in which to convene with key community stakeholders and roll out community action plans, along with targeted academic detailing interventions. Our work has involved launching on-location trainings at each of these pilot sites, focusing on providing front line clinicians with tools and support to improve outcomes for patients. Messaging and support for these campaigns include lowering prescribing rates, referring patients to treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) including Medication Assisted Training (MAT), and using their state's PDMP (Prescription Drug Monitoring Program) to identify troubling patterns of use, which may, in turn, help to identify those patients who need more support and care. Trainees at each site of these pilot sites work with us across two days to learn the structure of an academic detailing visit, practice role playing 1:1 visits with clinicians, and become experts at using educational materials (including a suite of materials constructed by the CDC based on their 2016 Opioid Prescribing Guidelines). Our pilot site trainees walk away from our trainings ready to actively engage with clinicians to assess individual needs and provide customized support, and encourage behavior change for the opioid crisis in their respective communities. NaRCAD's team will continue to focus on launching new academic detailing interventions across the U.S. well into 2018, with upcoming opioid-specific trainings being carried out in late May in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with the University of New Mexico's Health Sciences Center, and in late June in Lansing, Michigan, with the Michigan Public Health Institute. Our next all-topic, AD techniques training in Boston will kick off at the end of this month, where we'll train 24 health professionals from across the U.S.--we'll report back after that training and share lessons learned, highlights, slide decks, and clinical topics from represented programs, and we look forward to sharing those with our community. Join our subscription list to receive alerts for upcoming training opportunities. Want to customize a clinical topic-specific training for 15 trainees or more, on site in your community? Reach out to us to schedule a training consultation call at narcad@partners.org. We can't wait to work with you! -The NaRCAD Team 'Guest Blog | Alyson Decker, NP, MPH | San Francisco Department of Public Health Tags: Detailing Visits, HIV/AIDS, PrEP, Sexual Health Our AD program is part of a 3-year demonstration project (CDC Project PrIDE), and as part of our grant-funded work our overarching goal is increasing PrEP access and prescribing to MSM (men who have sex with men) of color and transgender persons who are at substantial risk of acquiring HIV. Our goals include improving sexual health in the primary care setting, refining sexual health history-taking, increasing screening and testing for those with risks, promoting best practices around PrEP prescribing, and helping to establish relationships between our health department and our community providers. The added benefit of public health detailing is that it also increases awareness about the issues that affect our community. I have been inviting clinicians that I meet to join us in our city-wide Getting to Zero consortium, which helps providers feel that they are part of this important movement of preventing HIV transmissions, deaths, and stigma. In San Francisco, there is a need for urgency around this issue, especially because it’s become evident that as HIV transmissions continue to decrease, the disparities among new HIV positive diagnoses become more apparent. Many of these disparities are among communities who still may not be aware of PrEP, or are facing barriers to access. Our academic detailing program strives to reach the providers who work with these vulnerable communities. When kicking off an intervention such as this, identifying the clinicians who see this target population is the first step. To do this, we used STD surveillance data to determine which providers and clinics were diagnosing syphilis and rectal gonorrhea and chlamydia, which are associated with an increased risk for HIV. However, since many providers are not performing appropriate screenings, we also reached out to clinics known to serve our priority population and those located in neighborhoods with the highest HIV incidences. The next step is how to “get in the door” with these clinicians, which means finding a way to secure a 1:1 visit. I’ve found that initial non-responsiveness isn’t the end of the world—persistence pays off, so keep trying to get in the door, or find an entry point through other community contacts. Sometimes, choosing a different access point can really work well to start a relationship. There are many places where 1:1 visits aren’t feasible due to clinic structure or culture. If I’m able to detail to a small group, it can be a way to meet with a few providers and gain insight about how PrEP might be incorporated or enhanced in their setting. Being invited to an all-staff meeting is often an excellent way to kick off an introduction to this important intervention, and can result in follow-up conversations with individual clinicians. One benefit of meeting in small groups is that if a clinician hears a fellow clinician say that he or she is already prescribing PrEP, there may be more openness to discussing the topic; other providers might feel comforted in having a PrEP "ally", resulting in buy-in from the clinic overall. Some clinicians may think that this type of intervention isn’t relevant to their patient population; as I detailer, I often hear responses such as, “I don’t see this population reflected in my practice,” or “My patients don’t have this risk,”, even if it’s been proven that these clinics do, indeed, serve priority populations. In order to talk about PrEP, you first have to talk about risks for HIV, which often means talking about sex. I think there can be discomfort on both the patient and provider side, and sex is often still a stigmatized topic. There are also overarching resource barriers, including the fact that clinicians are extremely busy and have to address competing health needs in the primary care setting. While a small pool of clinicians have minimal understanding of PrEP, and require a basic overview about elements like identifying potential PrEP candidates, how to take a good sexual history, and how to bring up PrEP in an appointment, I’ve found that many clinicians are aware to some extent about PrEP already, and are interested in next-level details about how to implement it. This might include what kind of testing is recommended, how to increase number of basic screens, and increasing their knowledge about comprehensive health. There are also providers who are very advanced in their knowledge of what options are available to populations with risks for HIV. This is where the academic detailing becomes more intricate; some providers are seeing lots of patients with risk factors, and may have been prescribing PrEP already. In a scenario such as this, my messaging focuses more on how to support clinicians in ensuring consistent follow-up with their patients, or in how to deal with multiple risk factors, such as when high-risk sexual behavior may overlap with instances of substance use or homelessness. For those who are just getting started, it may help to know that even after meeting with 300 providers, I still get nervous each time I prepare to detail, especially if I’m unfamiliar with a practice. Regardless of the nature of my visits, I walk away feeling that I’ve accomplished something if I’ve answered only one question that’s helped the clinician with his or her practice. And I’ve found that in most cases, the people I meet with are very thankful for this service, and are appreciative of the health department. I always thank providers for the work they do and remind them what an important role they have in the community. Biography. Alyson Decker, NP, MPH Alyson Decker is a Clinical Prevention Consultant and nurse practitioner with Disease Prevention & Control at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. As the branch’s lead academic detailer, she helped develop San Francisco’s first HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) detailing program. Her role consists of detailing with community providers to increase PrEP prescribing in the primary care setting and promote best prescribing practices. In addition, she provides training assistance to healthcare providers and frontline staff around improving sexual healthcare and STD testing and treatment. She also sees patients at the municipal sexual health clinic, San Francisco City Clinic. Year One of Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment’s Detailing ProgramGuest Blogger: Deborah Monaghan, MD Public Health/Academic Detailer Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment NaRCAD Training Alumnus Tags: As the first and only detailer hired by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which serves 5.6 million people (about 3 million of which cluster around one metro area), the idea of building a detailing program from the ground up was incredibly exciting…and daunting. From the outset, it was important to determine the place of detailing within the community and establish its fit in the department’s mission. Shortly after joining the team, I presented the intended scope of my work at a department meeting--and it generated tremendous interest in the use of academic detailing for public health initiatives far beyond the current planned intervention. This served to solidify the potential value of clinical education outreach to leadership throughout the department. Lessons learned are continually surfacing as we move into year two, and a few key concepts are worth sharing. Particularly in the early stages of program establishment, it was essential to stretch resources and leverage partnerships. NaRCAD connections with other detailing programs facilitated the exchange of print resources, protocols and lessons learned, saving valuable development time. Through CDC-funded capacity building visits, I shadowed detailing teams at two other health departments' AD programs (San Francisco Department of Public Health and the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene), which provided a framework for our own program’s function. At every opportunity, I presented our detailing goals to community partners and stakeholders, resulting in many connections to medical providers, which, in turn, generated most of our initial provider visits. Submitting articles for local clinical practice newsletters and magazines also established recognition and trust in the state’s new detailing initiatives. Once provider-facing detailing visits began, two things became quite clear: Providers crave connection to their public health department. Providers want regional data. In a state with both urban and rural/frontier areas, urban clinicians wanted to be seen as “boots on the ground” to impact large populations by treating their own patients, while rural providers wanted to be acknowledged as part of the team and directed to resources they could access remotely. All clinicians, both urban and rural, wanted the latest disease and health data for their county, zip code, and even census tract level to compare to the rest of the state. It has taken multiple attempts to get in the door in many practices. However, after a detailing visit, most providers are outspoken that they found the session worthwhile, and we've used this opportunity to ask for referrals to other providers who might be open to visits. The time investment has also enabled two-way communication allowing us to get a “finger on the pulse” of regional health and disease, particularly in the more rural areas. The initial time invested to establish relationships with providers was high, but the rate of return has justified the investment. With a new detailing program, the responsibility falls to the detailer to establish credibility, both in resources provided as well as in value for time spent. If I were starting a detailing program again, or could support new programs who were just getting started, I would love to be armed with these lessons learned: Establish as many protocols, procedures and resources as possible. Just start! Even if every detail isn’t in place, start visiting with providers. (The steep learning curve of on-the-ground visits is incredibly valuable and will continue to shape and improve your methods.) Document everything! As methods change and processes improve, document what is changing and why. Document with the goal of sharing not simply a starting point and a finished product but an entire story. Be willing to adjust in real time. Providers will have varying needs from one to another and from one day to the next, and our flexibility will ultimately strengthen the relationships we are trying to build, allowing academic detailing to have the greatest possible impact. Biography.
Deborah Monaghan, MD Public Health/Academic Detailer, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Deborah joined CDPHE in 2016 as the Department’s first detailer and currently provides clinical outreach on HIV prevention and sexual health. A graduate of the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, internship took Deborah to Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania followed by residency at St Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado. She will complete her MSPH through the University of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2018. Initial response from the provider community receiving detailing has been overwhelmingly positive, and Deborah hopes to facilitate expansion of detailing efforts into other branches of public health to impact more Coloradans. Director's Letter: Summer 2017 | Mike Fischer, MD, MS, NaRCAD Director Tags: Detailing Visits, Director's Letter Academic detailing is naturally versatile, growing from the initial studies focused on prescribing decisions to include interventions to improve childhood screening, assessment of cardiovascular risk, smoking cessation treatment, and many other important clinical topics. Whenever medical care and patient outcomes can be improved by outreach education to frontline clinicians, there’s an opportunity for AD to make a crucial difference. We’ve seen our partner organizations use AD in novel and exciting ways, making adaptations to fit their specific interventions and to combat diverse challenges. Healthcare is in a period of ongoing, rapid change—and continued innovation in clinical outreach education is critical in improving the quality of patient care. But for new ideas to have an impact, they need to be evaluated and communicated to the larger community. Tell us more about what you’re working on—we’ll connect you with others addressing the same clinical topic, or working with a similar geography or population, and we’ll share your experiences and results via our best practices blog, website, newsletter, and social media platform. Along with trainings and networking opportunities, NaRCAD provides targeted consultation and technical assistance to improve your successes in the field. We also participate in collaborations with programs as part of multifactorial interventions and research studies.
If so, drop us an e-mail, give us a call, or write a note in the comments section below--we’ll be in touch to figure out next steps, whether that involves submitting a proposal together, figuring out a customized training, or connecting you with experts that can support your project. Whether you’re looking to strengthen your team, meet thought leaders in the field, or tell us more about your work in person, we hope you’ll join us at our Fall Training in September, and our annual International Conference on AD this November--registration is open for both, and we look forward to seeing you soon! -Mike Biography. Michael Fischer, MD, MS, NaRCAD Director
Dr. Fischer is a general internist, pharmacoepidemiologist, and health services researcher. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard and a clinically active primary care physician and educator at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. With extensive experience in designing and evaluating interventions to improve medication use, he has published numerous studies demonstrating potential gains from improved prescribing. Read more. Bevin K. Shagoury, NaRCAD Communications Director Tags: Detailing Visits, Evidence-Based Medicine, Training We're getting ready for our September 2017 training course, and our waiting list is already packed with health professionals who are eager to learn the techniques of academic detailing. So, what's our 2-day training class all about? First, some background on why academic detailing ("AD") is a critical tool in healthcare improvement. AD, or "clinical outreach education", is a unique clinical outreach education strategy where a trained health professional visits a frontline clinician, providing custom-tailored, 1:1, interactive service to that clinician in order to share best evidence and promote specific behavior changes. In a 1:1 clinician visit, best evidence is shared to promote changes in care across clinical topics and strategies, including anything from shifts in patient prescribing (e.g., to prescribe fewer antibiotics, or switch to a more effective statin) to increases in use of screening and prevention tools (e.g., using a new tool to assess fall risk for seniors, or increase colon cancer screening for a specific demographic.) But knowing the best evidence is only half the battle. Effective academic detailers must learn how to truly connect with a busy clinician, figure out quickly and accurately what that clinician needs to support his or her practice, and deliver information in a dynamic, engaging, and clinician-centric way. "AD" is never a lecture, nor is it simply a delivery of glossy printouts. It's a personalized service used to actively engage busy front line clinicians, and the only way to learn how to deliver that service is to practice doing it. We teach our trainees to prepare for inevitable pushback and artfully deliver critical information that a front line clinician needs in order to provide the best care.
Over 300 of our trainees have completed our 2-day course ready to visit practices, build trusting relationships with front-line clinicians, skillfully share best evidence, and successfully implement effective health interventions. If you're thinking about attending but would like to know more, please drop us an e-mail and our team will be happy to discuss this unique training experience. You can also check out testimonials from previous trainees here. Ready to register? Just visit our training series page after July 1st, 2017, and save yourself a spot at our September 2017 session. The National Academic Detailing Service’s Opioid Overdose Education & Naloxone Distribution (OEND) Program Guest Blog Authors: Melissa Christopher, PharmD, National Director Mark Bounthavong, PharmD, MPH, National Clinical Program Manager Tags: Data, Detailing Visits, Evaluation, Opioid Safety, Substance Use In 2015, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) invested in the National Academic Detailing Service to improve the health of our Veterans to address the call to action for the opioid crisis. Through the Opioid Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution (OEND) Program, our goals were to reduce harm and risk of life-threatening opioid-related overdose and deaths among Veterans. Key components of the OEND program include raising awareness about the epidemic, 1:1 academic detailing visits with clinicians to provide education and training regarding opioid overdose prevention, opioid overdose rescue response, and issuing naloxone products. We developed direct-to-consumer marketing and other e-resources, including a video, Introduction to Naloxone for People Taking Prescribed Opioids. We also created implementation tools, including population management dashboards to aid staff in evaluating risk factors of their patient population and distributing naloxone accordingly. Academic Detailers demonstrated to VA providers these resources to help raise awareness of opioid overdose risk for their patient panel. Decision-makers believed that funding this program would yield a good return on investment. As part of the National Academic Detailing Service, it’s our responsibility to collect data and supply decision-makers with evidence on the value and success of our program. In other words, we’re accountable for answering the question, “Is academic detailing worth it?” To answer this question, we performed several program evaluations of the National Academic Detailing Service from 2015 to 2017, one of which we just published in the Journal of American Pharmacists Association (JAPhA) (Trends in naloxone prescriptions prescribed after implementation of a National Academic Detailing Service in the Veterans Health Administration: A preliminary analysis.) The evaluation found that our program improved naloxone distribution rates at a seven times greater increase for Veterans at risk for opioid overdose. These results provided key empirical evidence that VA’s strategy of academic detailing was working. Just as important, these findings also gave decision-makers what they needed—proof that their investment in an area of high risk to Veterans’ health paid off by improving care. But we learned that another group of stakeholders was just as important as the decision-makers who funded the program—the clinicians that academic detailers visited to provide outreach education as a service. Academic detailers work with clinicians to help them change practice patterns, focusing on improving health outcomes in alignment with balanced, current evidence. As clinicians commit to sustainable behavior change, these providers need to hear the feedback about how the time they’ve invested with their patients ultimately improves outcomes and, in this case, saves lives. Sharing program results with the clinicians in this intervention also encouraged these providers to share their own results, many of which were stories of patients returning to the clinic to relate their experiences of using naloxone to reverse an overdose. These stories, along with reversal reports from the field that tracked the outcomes of naloxone kit distribution and subsequent use, also created a tangible “return on investment” for everyone involved. We encourage other academic detailing programs to prioritize program evaluation as we have at the VHA—no matter the size of your program, if you’re thinking, “we can’t afford to do program evaluations,“ we stress that you can’t afford not to do them. Measuring program work builds a case not just for the success of one academic detailing intervention, but for the success of future programs—a case for sustainability. Evaluation measures the quality of a program, analyzing results to look at a program’s impact, and allowing for process improvement adjustments to be made to streamline efforts and strengthen that impact. Evaluation cannot be optional, especially when lives are at stake. We also recommend that the results from program evaluations are shared with other stakeholders, such as clinicians, in order to encourage and sustain their behavior changes. Leveraging results from well-designed evaluation is essential for academic detailing interventions to illustrate success, share value, and provide stakeholders and community members with a clear “Yes!” in answer to their overarching question: “Was the investment worth it?” Resources:
Biography. Melissa Christopher, PharmD National Director, Academic Detailing, US Department of Veterans Affairs Central Office, Pharmacy Benefits Management (PBM) Academic Detailing Service Dr. Christopher is the National Director of VA Academic Detailing Services, overseeing the implementation efforts for academic detailing expansion across all Veteran Integrated Service Networks since 2014. She received her Doctor of Pharmacy from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. She completed a Pharmacy Practice Residency and Post Graduate Year 2 in Pharmacoeconomics and Formulary Management at VA San Diego Healthcare System. Dr. Christopher conducted research in health outcomes and pharmacoeconomic analysis for several chronic disease management areas. In recent years, Dr. Christopher has embraced the mission to expand efforts for educational outreach by clinical pharmacists for improvement of evidence based care in Pain Management, Depression, Schizophrenia, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder as well as other substance use disorders. Most of her program efforts focus on development of educational materials, outcome monitors, provider specific electronic audit and feedback tools to trend practice patterns with implementation efforts for the newly developed as well as fully implemented AD programs. Mark Bounthavong, PharmD, MPH National Clinical Program Manager, Academic Detailing Service, Veterans Affairs Dr. Bounthavong graduated from the College of Pharmacy at Western University of Health Sciences. He completed a PGY-1 Pharmacy Practice Residency at the Veterans Affairs Loma Linda Healthcare System followed by a fellowship in Outcomes Research and Pharmacoeconomics at Western University of Health Sciences. He started his career at the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System as a pharmacoeconomics clinical specialist. During his tenure at the VA, Mark worked on identifying cost-effective strategies and formulary management; directed the PGY-1 Managed Care Pharmacy Residency; and completed a Master of Public Health from Emory University. Mark left the VA in order to pursue a PhD in the Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy Program at the University of Washington. He recently accepted a position at the VA as one of the National Clinical Pharmacy Data Program Managers in the Academic Detailing Service. As I write this in mid-January, it is difficult to know how the health care system will be transformed in the coming weeks, months, and years. But one thing is clear: the new administration and Congress are intent on repealing the Affordable Care Act, and they will have the votes in Washington to do so. Despite their holding this policy position for six years, followed by a long (if issues-light) campaign season, it is not at all clear what will replace it. But one thing is certain: the new administration is committed to reducing federal support for health care for enormous numbers of American citizens. “Better coverage and lower costs” is more bumper-sticker rhetoric than plausible policy, and doesn’t meet the basic criteria of arithmetic. This means that all those who care for patients in the U.S., as well as policymakers, will be forced to live under the yoke of that awful cliché, “doing more with less.” (Our colleagues in Canada and overseas must be reading this message from the richest nation on earth with a mixture of horror and pity.) Appropriate clinical decision making is about to be transformed from a noble goal we should all strive for to a literal matter of life and death. As the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured swell, prescribing a costly drug when a more inexpensive one would work as well will increasingly mean that patients without adequate coverage will simply be unable to afford treatment for their atrial fibrillation, hypertension, or heart failure. The aftermath of the November election will convert a bumpy, imperfect patchwork of coverage into a public administration catastrophe, soon to be followed by a public health debacle. These changes will transform the active provision of evidence-based, non-commercial information about clinical care from a smart choice for quality improvement to an urgent requirement. Practitioners who care for the millions of patients whose coverage is legislated away will desperately need the very best information about comparative efficacy and cost-effectiveness. Most of us engaged in academic detailing programs have shied away from emphasizing cost-containment as a primary feature or goal of such programs, and for good reason. But just as battlefield medicine often has to dispense with the niceties of office practice to address front-line emergencies, we will need to consider the possibility of “battlefield academic detailing” in the coming year to help deal with the widespread health care financial trauma that patients throughout the U.S. will be confronting, along with their health care professionals. Most of us in American medicine – patients and clinicians alike – will find our hazard ratios going up, and our quality of life going down. Now more than ever, it will be imperative to communicate the best science as effectively as we can. Biography. Jerry Avorn, MD, Co-Director of NaRCAD Dr. Avorn is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics (DoPE) at Brigham & Women's Hospital. A general internist, geriatrician, and drug epidemiologist, he pioneered the concept of academic detailing and is recognized internationally as a leading expert on this topic and on optimal medication use, particularly in the elderly. Read more. Director’s Letter: Fall 2016 | Mike Fischer, MD, MS, Director of NaRCAD Tags: Conference, Detailing Visits, Director's Letter, Training When the leaves start to turn here in Boston, we know it’s almost time for NaRCAD’s International Conference on Academic Detailing. This year’s 4th annual conference features several new and exciting sessions we’re excited to share with our community. #NaRCAD2016 highlights the work of innovators in academic detailing from many locations and organizations, ranging from large national health systems to small independent programs. Diverse clinical topics will be featured at our interactive sessions, including pediatric developmental screening, smoking cessation in patients with serious mental illness, opioid misuse and overuse, screening for ADHD, and many others. Breakout sessions offer attendees a chance to work closely with leaders in the field, featuring in-depth and hands-on exploration of specific elements of academic detailing. Whether your focus is on training detailers, preparing clinical topic materials, or program evaluation, our dynamic breakout sessions offer a chance to network and acquire new skills. Our conference is our largest event of the year, but our team has been busy this fall with other activities. At our Boston-based training in September we welcomed trainees from organizations across the country, all of whom concentrated on learning the techniques of academic detailing. We also spent two days this fall in San Francisco, working with the city’s Department of Public Health on an intervention to increase the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for patients at risk of contracting HIV. We’re excited to continue supporting our partners at the SFDPH as they move forward on this important initiative. Come join us at #NaRCAD2016! There’s only a month left to register, and space is limited. Check out our conference hub archival page to see what previous events were like, including on-demand video and program highlights. We’re excited that clinical outreach education has been such an effective strategy to address the pressing problems facing patients, clinicians, and health systems. This year, we know that the opportunity to learn, share ideas, and connect with experts will continue to ignite inspiration for our community’s important work in improving quality of care and patient outcomes in 2017 and beyond. Biography. Michael Fischer, MD, MS | Director, NaRCAD Dr. Fischer is a general internist, pharmacoepidemiologist, and health services researcher. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard and a clinically active primary care physician and educator at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. With extensive experience in designing and evaluating interventions to improve medication use, he has published numerous studies demonstrating potential gains from improved prescribing. Read more. |
Highlighting Best PracticesWe highlight what's working in clinical education through interviews, features, event recaps, and guest blogs, offering clinical educators the chance to share successes and lessons learned from around the country & beyond. Search Archives
|