Physicians Innovation Awareness Program: helping radiologists learn about innovations

The Physicians Innovation Awareness Program (PIAP) was designed to study the strategies of Canadian radiologists implementing innovations into their practices and to use the information to design an educational program to help radiologists learn about innovations. Canadian radiologists were asked, by means of a mail survey, for information about innovations in practice adopted in the previous 2 years and planned for the next 2 years. Surveys were sent to the 1077 practising radiologists registered in the Canadian Association of Radiologists (CAR) as of Sept. 30, 1991; 325 (30.2%) responded. Most (281) of the responding radiologists were practising in communities with a population of 50,000 or more; 103 of the 188 respondents for whom faculty status was known were affiliated with a university. Most of the respondents reported that they spent up to 25% of their working time in at least one subspecialty pursuit. From the information in the surveys, an educational strategy was designed to help radiologists in learning about innovations. This program involved special sessions on six selected topics presented at two annual meetings of the CAR, as well as publications, mailings and other lectures. The authors conclude that a specialty society can obtain adequate information from its members to design an educational program to help practitioners in adopting innovations.