What impact do posters have on academic knowledge transfer? A pilot survey on author attitudes and experiences

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Research knowledge is commonly facilitated at conferences via oral presentations, poster presentations and workshops. Current literature exploring the efficacy of academic posters is however limited. The purpose of this initial study was to explore the perceptions of academic poster presentation, together with its benefits and limitations as an effective mechanism for academic knowledge transfer and contribute to the available academic data.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A survey was distributed to 88 delegates who presented academic posters at two Releasing Research and Enterprise Potential conferences in June 2007 and June 2008 at Bournemouth University. This survey addressed attitude and opinion items, together with their general experiences of poster presentations. Descriptive statistics were performed on the responses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A 39% return was achieved with the majority of respondents believing that posters are a good medium for transferring knowledge and a valid form of academic publication. Visual appeal was cited as more influential than subject content, with 94% agreeing that poster imagery is most likely to draw viewer's attention. Respondents also believed that posters must be accompanied by their author in order to effectively communicate the academic content.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This pilot study is the first to explore perceptions of the academic poster as a medium for knowledge transfer. Given that academic posters rely heavily on visual appeal and direct author interaction, the medium requires greater flexibility in their design to promote effective knowledge transfer. This paper introduces the concept of the IT-based 'MediaPoster' so as to address the issues raised within published literature and subsequently enhance knowledge-transfer within the field of academic medicine.</p

A systematic review of the implementation and impact of asthma protocols

BACKGROUND: Asthma is one of the most common childhood illnesses. Guideline-driven clinical care positively affects patient outcomes for care. There are several asthma guidelines and reminder methods for implementation to help integrate them into clinical workflow. Our goal is to determine the most prevalent method of guideline implementation; establish which methods significantly improved clinical care; and identify the factors most commonly associated with a successful and sustainable implementation. METHODS: PUBMED (MEDLINE), OVID CINAHL, ISI Web of Science, and EMBASE. Study Selection: Studies were included if they evaluated an asthma protocol or prompt, evaluated an intervention, a clinical trial of a protocol implementation, and qualitative studies as part of a protocol intervention. Studies were excluded if they had non-human subjects, were studies on efficacy and effectiveness of drugs, did not include an evaluation component, studied an educational intervention only, or were a case report, survey, editorial, letter to the editor. RESULTS: From 14,478 abstracts, we included 101 full-text articles in the analysis. The most frequent study design was pre-post, followed by prospective, population based case series or consecutive case series, and randomized trials. Paper-based reminders were the most frequent with fully computerized, then computer generated, and other modalities. No study reported a decrease in health care practitioner performance or declining patient outcomes. The most common primary outcome measure was compliance with provided or prescribing guidelines, key clinical indicators such as patient outcomes or quality of life, and length of stay. CONCLUSIONS: Paper-based implementations are by far the most popular approach to implement a guideline or protocol. The number of publications on asthma protocol reminder systems is increasing. The number of computerized and computer-generated studies is also increasing. Asthma guidelines generally improved patient care and practitioner performance regardless of the implementation method