Barriers and facilitators influencing the management of academic detailing programs: A descriptive analysis of four...

Educating prescribers is a key strategy to reduce inappropriate prescribing in selection, dose, type, timing, and duration. Academic detailing (AD) is a form of continuing medical education to educate prescribers. AD programs have been established in Canada, Australia, the United States, and other countries. Each program operates uniquely to reflect its local context and resources. It remains unclear how AD programs in universal health care systems differ from each other in their program components and experiences.

To compare AD programs focusing on components of resources, activities, and services and to identify factors influencing program efficiency during the processes of program management, topic development, and service delivery among the selected Canadian and international AD programs.

We adopted a process evaluation methodology with semistructured interviews and documents. We selected 4 well-established AD programs through an iterative discussion with the BC Ministry of Health: three provincial AD programs in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and Saskatchewan, and an Australian program based in the State of South Australia. We invited one leader from each program to attend a 1-hour teleconferencing interview.

The 4 programs shared similarities of public government funding while differed in their operation models (centralized vs. decentralized), employment of detailers (part-time vs. full-time; hired by AD programs vs. hired by partnered multidisciplinary primary care teams) and staff who developed topics (detailers vs. nondetailers). The most common barriers were funding and reaching new participants, followed by team connection, detailer training resources, summarizing skills, and AD session scheduling. The most common facilitators were participant retention, participant recruitment through partnership, and easy access sessions.

AD programs can potentially guide a prescriber's choice of drug. A program's operation can be impacted by its access to resources and participants, activities, and service design.