Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-rvxtl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-11T06:45:42.204Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

When Does Information Change Practitioners' Behavior?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2009

David E. Kanouse  and
Itzhak Jacoby
David E. Kanouse
Affiliation:
The RAND Corporation
Itzhak Jacoby
Affiliation:
National Institutes of Health
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Programs that disseminate information to health care practitioners often do so partly to encourage appropriate changes in practice. However, merely providing information is seldom enough to accomplish such changes. If information transfer programs are to influence practice, they must be designed to maximize the conditions facilitating change. Reliance on a diffusion model for thinking about how information reaches practitioners has led researchers to over-emphasize the importance of exposure to information and ignore other factors that determine whether change will occur, such as practitioners' motivation to change, the context in which clinical decisions are made, and how information is presented. The fact that successful dissemination will not necessarily produce change also has implications for how information transfer programs should be monitored and evaluated.

Type
Special Section: Technology Assessment and the Alteration of Medical Practices
Information
International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , January 1988 , pp. 27 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bauer, R. A., & Wortzell, L. H.Doctor's choice: The physician and his sources of information about drugs. Journal of Marketing Research, 1966, 3, 40–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, J. S., Katz, E., & Menzel, H.Medical innovations: A diffusion study. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merill, 1966.Google Scholar
Ferber, R., & Wales, H. G.The effectiveness of pharmaceutical promotion. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958.Google Scholar
Institute of Medicine. Assessing medical technologies. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Jacoby, I., & Rose, M.Transfer of information and its impact on medical practice: The U.S. experience. International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, 1986, 2, 107–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kahan, J. P., Kanouse, D. E., & Winkler, J. D. Stylistic variations in NIH consensus statements, 1979–1983. International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, 1988, 4, forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanouse, D. E., Brook, R. H., Winkler, J. D. et al. , Changing medical practice through technology assessment: An evaluation of the NIH consensus development program. Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, R-3452-NIH, forthcoming 1987.Google Scholar
Lloyd, J. S., & Abrahamson, S.Effectiveness of continuing medical education. Evaluation and the Health Professions, 1979, 2, 251–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McLaughlin, C. P., & Penchansky, R.Diffusion of innovation in medicine: A problem of continuing medical education. Journal of Medical Education, 1965, 40, 437–47.Google Scholar
Menzel, H. Interpersonal and unplanned communications: Indispensable or obsolete? In Roberts, E. B., Levy, R. I., Finkelstein, S. N. et al. , (eds.), Biomedical innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981, 155–63.Google Scholar
Rogers, E. M., & Shoemaker, F.Communication of innovations: A cross-cultural approach (2nd ed.). New York: Free Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Temin, P.Taking your medicine: Drug regulation in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, D. A. Communications linking clinical research and clinical practice. In Roberts, E. B., Levy, R. I., Finkelstein, S. N. et al. , (eds.), Biomedical innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981, 177–99.Google Scholar