Learning Objectives: Explain the importance of helping an office develop an implementation plan and why post training follow up and mentoring of the practice can help ensure implementation of the intervention.
Abstract:
Problem/Objective: In a busy doctors office it is often difficult to implement new interventions. Following a training, attention given specific to the needs of the office regarding office change issues can be the determining factor as to whether an office is able to implement an intervention.
Methods: : Data collected from self reported forms completed by trained offices indicates that they are not all implementing the intervention following a training or are not implementing all of the 5 A's brief counseling intervention. As a result, we developed an office protocol worksheet in which trainers could discuss office implementation issues with the office coordinator immediately following the training. In addition, follow up and mentoring occurs at two-months, six-months, and one year post training.
Results: The number of doctors offices fully implementing the 5 A's brief counseling intervention has increased since incorporating into the training a component which pays attention to implementation. These results indicate implementation occurring at the two and six month follow up intervals to date. We will have implementation results from one-year follow up in the spring of 2004.
Conclusions: Due to the increased efforts to give attention and mentoring specific to the needs of a particular office, an impact on the ability of an office to implement the intervention and maintain it has increased. It is our recommendation that implementation issues need to be an integral part of any training that is provided to a physician’s office and that formal research be conducted to study the impact of post training support on implementation.
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