Newsletters - Template Recommendations

The template recommendations for an academic detailing newsletter will be broadly grouped under two categories: recommendations for formatting and recommendations for content. These recommendations are based on our experience with the development of academic detailing materials, our survey of eight academic detailing organizations based in Canada, the United States and Australia, and the catalogued evaluation of 31 newsletters from these organizations. All individual documents discussed in the recommendations are available in Appendix 26.

Formatting Recommendations

An academic detailing newsletter should attempt to conform to the numerous formatting points used to evaluate the newsletters within this section. These points will be outlined with examples of newsletters that exemplify the characteristics and/or fail to conform to the characteristics. In addition to the outlined points, COMPUS may wish to allow space within the format of the newsletter to incorporate a logo or “Distributed By” section to facilitate partnership with other organizations.

The number of sections suit the topic being discussed and should generally not exceed five. If more than five points are to be made, they should be housed under broader categories.

Exemplifies: Emergency Contraception (NL - 27) represents a relatively simple topic and provides the content of the newsletter in three sections plus a summary.

Fails: Statin Update (NL - 24) does represent a complicated clinical topic, but utilizes six separate sections of text plus a summary. The ability to recall the information in each section may be hampered by the sheer number of different messages provided.
There should be editorial consistency in tables within the newsletter considering hierarchy, formatting, highlighting and colouring of information.

Exemplifies: Management of Community Acquired Pneumonia in Adults (NL - 30) represents a document with a lot of tabular information. The table headings, use of colour, justification of text and bullet formatting are consistently applied.

Fails: Statin Therapy: Decisions and Dilemmas (NL - 21) includes three tables. Several aspects of the tables are inconsistent including justification of text, font used and colour schemes.
Text-based sections within the newsletter should be formatted properly with optimal column widths, avoidance of overly long sections of prose, consistent use of bullets, appropriate justification, appropriate text size and use colour that enhances readability.

Exemplifies: Management of depression in primary care (NL - 15) is a heavily narrative document that uses generally good quality formatting to enhance readability.

Fails: An Overview of ASCOT-LLA (NL - 08) contains a great deal of text, but is inconsistent in its use of bullets, highlighting and text size. As well, page-width columns reduce the general readability.
There should be no greater than 3 levels of hierarchy within sections of text.

Exemplifies: The majority of newsletters consistently utilized only 2 levels of hierarchy.

Fails: Post MI Troubleshooting Practical Issues (NL - 09) utilizes four levels of hierarchy within the text of the document.

Content Recommendations

An academic detailing newsletter should attempt to incorporate as many of the content qualities used to evaluate the newsletters within this section. These qualities are outlined and if applicable, examples are provided of newsletters that exemplify the characteristics and/or fail to conform to the characteristic.

The newsletter should be referenced and peer reviewed.
The newsletter should be based on some form of systematic review of the literature. To adhere to the principles of evidence-based medicine, the reader should have some assurance that the literature selected to support the newsletter has not been selected with a bias to support a particular point of view. Detailing organizations are aware of the desirability of adhering to this level of rigour but few have been explicit about including this approach. It may be possible to take advantage of existing systematic reviews to explicitly meet this quality requirement.
The newsletter should provide clear and practical statistical representation of information.

Exemplifies: An Overview of IDEAL (NL - 07) provides statistical information on absolute and relative risk reduction, number needed to treat and number needed to harm for a variety of clinical endpoints. It does not include the event rates with 95% confidence interval for the treatment and placebo groups which is another important statistical measure that may be valuable to practitioners.

Fails: Acid Neutralizing Therapy: neutralizing the hype (NL - 12) provides no statistical information in the discussion of therapeutic options, benefit or harm.
Information to support therapeutic decision making should be included within the newsletter which may include dosing recommendations, alternative therapies, duration of therapy, and/or comparative pricing information.

Exemplifies: Chronic Atrial Fibrillation (NL - 22) provides information on adverse effects, as well as therapy alternatives and cost comparisons.

Fails: Management of depression in primary care (NL - 15) provides no product-specific information to support therapeutic decision making.
The newsletter uses graphic or tabular information to complement text in the provision of information.

Exemplifies: Management of type 2 diabetes (NL - 31) utilizes a visually appealing flow-chart and graphs to convey pertinent information.

Fails: Benzodiazepines: Efficacy, Safety and Use Management (NL - 03) is heavily text-based and utilises no complementary graphs or tables.
The key messages within the newsletter should be highlighted and easily retrieved and the behavioural targets should be expressly evident within the key messages or elsewhere in the document.

Exemplifies: Spironolactone in Heart Failure: Good for All? (NL - 06) positions the key messages of the newsletter on the front page within an outlined box. The target behaviour of appropriate dosing, monitoring and safety considerations are evident within the key messages.

Fails: Dyslipidemia Clinical Notes Summaries (NL - 13) has no key messages highlighted within the document.
There should be mechanism to facilitate the storage and retrieval of the newsletter potentially including a volume/issue number, a date of production and a website repository address.

Exemplifies: Ischemic heart disease (NL - 16) contains all elements need to facilitate storage.

Fails: Management of Community Acquired Pneumonia in Adults (NL - 30) contains none of the retrieval mechanisms.

Newsletter Template Example

Template examples are provided to give a sense of how a document that considers the template recommendations may appear. This template example can be used as a starting point from which content-specific material may be developed. Template examples with content and without are provided. These templates were developed in Microsoft Publisher®, the publisher files of these template examples are included in Appendix 27.

Newsletter Utilization Recommendations

We have catalogued and evaluated a variety of newsletters that have been used to facilitate academic detailing interventions. While the style and content varied between the different organizations, the overall universal applicability of a relatively succinct (usually between two and four pages) review of literature on a topic is recognized. Most academic detailing topics would lend themselves to the production of a newsletter. Developed properly, the newsletter could be used both as a stand-alone tool for provision of evidence-based information, or as a reference document around which an academic detailing encounter can revolve. This versatility make it an important aspect of any academic detailing intervention.