Do educational outreach visits improve health professional practice and patient outcomes?

Educational outreach visits entail the use of a trained person from outside the practice setting to meet with healthcare professionals in their practice. They provide information that may include feedback about professional performance with the intent of improving practice. This type of face-to-face visit is also called academic detailing and educational visiting. The intervention may be tailored based upon previously identified barriers to change or combined with other interventions, including reminders or interventions targeted directly at patients, such as recall clinics.

Key messages

• Educational outreach visits alone or combined with other interventions improvethe quality of care delivered to patients.
• For prescribing, the effects are relatively consistent and small, but potentially important.
• For other types of professional performance, the effects vary widely from small to modest improvements.
• Educational outreach visits may not be effective in low- and middle-income countries if resources are not available to provide clinical and managerial support.