Achieving success connecting academic and practicing clinicians through telemedicine

Practicing clinicians, especially in rural areas, are often isolated from learning opportunities and interactions with subspecialty providers. Pediatric Physician Learning and Collaborative Education, an interactive, educational, telemedicine program, was developed to address this need. We evaluated the success of this program through surveys with practicing and academic physicians.

Pediatric Physician Learning and Collaborative Education was assessed by using 2 evaluation forms collected from October 2007 to May 2008. One of the forms was completed by 197 attendees from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and 172 attendees from remote sites. Another form was completed by 131 participants from Arkansas Children's Hospital, an academic, freestanding, children's hospital. Both evaluation forms asked participants to use a 5-point Likert scale to rank a number of criteria and included a section for participants to write comments and recommendations. Additional data were collected through an open-response e-mail survey of participants.

Ninety-five percent of the participants agreed that the presentations related to their professional needs, 98% agreed that the presentations increased their subject-matter knowledge, 81% evaluated the presentations as some of the best they had attended, and 93% agreed that the information would translate into professional practice, enhancing patient care. Health care personnel from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences evaluated the presentations significantly higher than did remote participants. Nursing staff members evaluated the presentations significantly higher than did medical staff members. Comments were generally positive and correlated with the Likert-scale data.

Participants reported being highly satisfied with Pediatric Physician Learning and Collaborative Education and considered it an effective way to address the continuing education needs of practitioners throughout Arkansas, especially in rural and underserved areas.