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Five Canadian programs joined forces to identify their best practices
Academic detailing to support rational prescribing is relatively new in Canada. In 2003, programs in five provinces formed the Canadian Academic Detailing Collaboration with the goal of preparing topics more accurately and efficiently, and disseminating evidence more effectively. In 2004, they began a two-year evaluation project funded by Health Canada to identify best practices. This article describes the programs in Nova Scotia and the Western provinces, and their coordinated evaluations.
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Le profilage de recherche favorisant la prescription rationnelle est un concept relativement nouveau au Canada. En 2003, des programmes de cinq provinces ont formé la Canadian Academic Detailing Collaboration, afin de préparer les sujets de recherche en faisant preuve d'une précision et d'une efficacité accrues, et en diffusant plus efficacement les données probantes. En 2004, le regroupement a entamé un projet d'évaluation de deux ans pour définir les pratiques exemplaires, grâce à une subvention de Santé Canada. Le présent article décrit les programmes mis en aeuvre en Nouvelle-Écosse et dans les provinces de l'Ouest, ainsi que leurs évaluations coordonnées.
A cademic detailing (AD) involves the provision of evidence-based health care and therapeutics information via a one-to-one personal visit by a trained person, usually a pharmacist, to a health provider in his or her own practice setting, with the intent of changing the provider's prescribing behaviour.1-3 AD is also known as counter-detailing, educational outreach, university-based educational detailing, and public interest detailing.
The Canadian Academic Detailing Collaboration (CADC) consists of AD programs in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia. With a contribution from Health Canada's Best Practices, they are evaluating processes and outcomes of AD.
The following briefly describes the projects CADC is undertaking and the results obtained so far. Table 1 summarizes the five Canadian programs participating in CADC.
1. Evaluation of AD impacts in Vancouver
Eighty general practitioners (GPs) participating in the British Columbia Community Drug Utilization Program (BC CDUP) were randomized to two groups: group 1 received a two-page newsletter on congestive heart failure, and group 2 received a newsletter on coxibs. Twenty-six physicians in group 1 and 39 in group 2 received academic detailing. After six months, the interventions were reversed. A nonrandomized control group of 334...