Educating health professionals: a hepatitis C educational program in a health maintenance organization Journal Article uri icon
Overview
abstract
  • OBJECTIVE: To describe the components of and staff reaction to an educational outreach program about hepatitis C (HCV) at a managed care organization in Minnesota. PROJECT PROTOCOL: Educational programs for primary care clinicians consisted of lunch-and-learn sessions conducted in 2 phases. In phase 1 (1997-1998), educational programs were offered in 4 clinics; in phase 2 (1999), these programs were offered to a larger number of clinics. There was a structured, 2-stage recruitment process, and the protocol included multiple contacts that involved sending educational materials to participants several weeks before the program. A development team, comprised of key health maintenance organization (HMO) stakeholders, provided consultation. EVALUATION: The initiative reached more than 1000 healthcare professionals, including 150 physicians. The educational programs received very high ratings, and pre- and posttests documented significant improvement in knowledge about HCV. CONCLUSIONS: This successful educational initiative had 5 key elements: (1) value to healthcare staff (i.e., importance of the topic and quality of the programs); (2) incentives (i.e., convenience, free lunch, and continuing medical education/continuing education unit credits); (3) repeated exposures (i.e., multiple opportunities for learning, both oral and written); (4) commitment by key stakeholders at the HMO and the clinics; and (5) an exceptionally well-organized implementation plan.

  • publication date
  • 2000
  • published in
    Research
    keywords
  • Attitude of Health Personnel
  • Clinical Protocols
  • Health Maintenance Organizations/*organization & administration
  • Hepatitis C/*diagnosis/*therapy
  • Inservice Training/*organization & administration/statistics & numerical data
  • Minnesota
  • Motivation
  • Nursing Staff/*education
  • Physicians, Family/*education
  • Program Evaluation
  • Workforce
  • Additional Document Info
    volume
  • 6
  • issue
  • 9