How physicians integrate advances into clinical practices

Abstract

Family physicians and specialists were asked to identify the sources of information they used in the process of making changes in their clinical practices. While physicians identified journals, courses, pharmaceutical representatives, colleagues and consultations frequently as initial sources of information, the anticipated benefit to patient care was most frequently identified as the final motivating factor. Socio-demographic factors including specialty status (vs. family physician), age, community size, and base hospital were found to influence the information sources used by physicians to integrate advances into their clinical practices. An average of 3.08 sources of information were utilized for each change and over fifty percent of the changes were complete in less than one year. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for providers of continuing medical education.