The Impact of Academic Detailing on Clinician and Patient Outcomes: A Narrative Review

Academic detailing (AD) can bridge the gap between evidence-based research and clinical practice to optimize patient outcomes. An up-to-date analysis of AD’s impact on clinician and patient outcomes is lacking. The purpose of this review was to examine updated evidence of AD’s impact on clinician knowledge, behavior, and patient outcomes. A librarian selected the keywords and designed the searches. Articles met full inclusion if they had an AD intervention and evaluated an outcome of change in clinician knowledge, behavior, and/or patient outcomes. The following data was extracted using Covidence: study design, types of outcomes, AD intervention description, number and type of learners and detailers, source of data analysis, outcome results, and if the results supported the use of AD. Forty studies were included in the final analysis. Twenty-seven percent (11 of 40) evaluated clinician knowledge change, 87.5% (35 of 40) evaluated clinician behavior change, and 17.5% (7 of 40) evaluated impact on patient care. Eighty percent of included studies (32 of 40) found a positive impact of AD on desired outcomes. There was a lack of uniform methodology and evaluation methods among the manuscripts. Pharmacists were the most common detailer type in the literature, aligning with AD topics of medication prescribing. The findings of this review reflect previous AD literature; variable interventions with less-than rigorous methodology and reporting, but an overall positive trend on desired outcomes.