CCPP Module 17, Section 5: Publishing and Disseminating Results
MODULE 17: QUALITY IMPROVEMENT AND OUTCOMES MEASUREMENT

Section 17.5: Publishing and Disseminating Results

The final step in establishing your expertise. We will provide a primer on preparing your quality improvement work for presentation at professional conferences or publication in peer-reviewed journals, contributing to the evidence base for the profession.

SECTION 17.5

From Practice to Publication: Advancing the Profession

Transforming your local quality improvement project into a contribution to the global evidence base of pharmacy practice.

17.5.1 The “Why”: The Professional Obligation to Share What You Learn

You have come to the end of the quality improvement journey. You identified a problem, selected metrics, used a systematic methodology to test a change, and created powerful reports to demonstrate your value to your institution. This is a complete and laudable achievement in its own right. Many excellent practitioners stop here, content with the improvements they have made within the walls of their own clinic or hospital. This final section, however, calls you to a higher professional purpose: the obligation to share what you have learned with the profession at large. Your local success story contains valuable lessons, insights, and data that can help another pharmacist, in another health system, solve a similar problem.

The practice of pharmacy does not advance through isolated pockets of excellence. It advances when practitioners build upon the work of others, share their successes and failures, and contribute to a collective body of evidence. Publishing your work—whether as a poster at a conference or a manuscript in a journal—is the formal mechanism for this process. It may seem like a daunting, purely “academic” pursuit, far removed from the daily realities of patient care. This is a misconception. Dissemination is the ultimate act of scaling your impact. A single pharmacist can directly care for a few hundred patients. But a single well-executed and published quality improvement project can indirectly improve the care of tens of thousands of patients by inspiring and informing countless other pharmacists.

Furthermore, on a personal and professional level, publishing is a powerful catalyst for career growth. It establishes you as an expert. It builds your professional network. It opens doors to new opportunities, leadership roles, and academic appointments. It is the definitive way to transition from being a consumer of medical literature to being a creator of it. This section is designed to demystify the process of scholarly dissemination. We will provide a practical, step-by-step guide to preparing your work for the wider world, transforming your internal report into a polished, professional contribution that advances not only your own career, but the entire profession of pharmacy.

Pharmacist Analogy: Developing a Grand Rounds CE Presentation

Think about the last time you were asked to prepare a formal, ACPE-accredited continuing education (CE) presentation for the pharmacists and technicians in your health system. You likely didn’t just stand up and casually talk about a topic. You followed a rigorous, structured process to transform your knowledge into a valuable educational product.

  • The “Abstract”: You first had to submit a proposal to the CE committee. This included a title, learning objectives, and a brief summary of your talk. This is exactly like submitting an abstract to a conference.
  • The “Literature Review”: You conducted a thorough review of the latest guidelines and clinical trials to ensure your content was evidence-based and up-to-date. This is the foundation of a manuscript’s introduction.
  • The “Methods”: You meticulously planned your presentation, creating an outline, developing slides, and designing active learning exercises or case studies. This structure is analogous to a manuscript’s methods section.
  • The “Results”: You presented the key data from the clinical trials, using clear charts and tables to illustrate the primary endpoints.
  • The “Discussion/Conclusion”: You didn’t just present the data; you interpreted it. You explained the clinical implications, the “so what,” and provided your expert recommendations for how this new information should change practice at your institution.
  • The “Peer Review”: After your presentation, you likely had a Q&A session. Your colleagues asked tough, insightful questions, challenged your assumptions, and forced you to defend your conclusions. This is the live version of the journal peer-review process.

The process of preparing a high-quality CE presentation mirrors the process of preparing a manuscript for publication. Both require a structured approach, a commitment to evidence, and the ability to synthesize complex information into a clear, compelling narrative for a specific audience. You have already developed these skills. This section will show you how to apply them to a new, even more impactful format.

17.5.2 Choosing Your Stage: Where to Share Your Work

Before you can begin to prepare your findings, you must first decide on the appropriate venue. The choice of where to disseminate your work depends on several factors: the scope and rigor of your project, your timeline, your resources, and your ultimate goal. The two primary pathways are professional conferences and peer-reviewed journals, each with its own set of advantages and expectations.

Masterclass Table: Conference Presentation vs. Journal Publication
Feature Professional Conference (Poster or Podium) Peer-Reviewed Journal
Primary Goal Rapid dissemination of preliminary or completed findings; networking with peers. Creation of a permanent, citable contribution to the evidence base; establishing high-level credibility.
Format A visual poster or a short (10-15 minute) oral presentation, summarized by a structured abstract. A detailed, formally structured manuscript (typically 2,500-4,000 words) following the IMRAD format.
Rigor & Detail Less rigorous. Ideal for reporting on smaller PDSA cycles, describing a new service, or sharing preliminary results of a larger project. The focus is on the key takeaways. Extremely rigorous. Requires a detailed methodology, robust data analysis, and a thorough discussion of limitations and context. Must be reproducible.
Peer Review Abstracts undergo review for acceptance, but the process is generally less intensive than for a manuscript. Feedback is often minimal. In-depth, critical review by 2-3 experts in the field. Often requires multiple rounds of significant revisions before acceptance. This is the gold standard of scientific vetting.
Time to Dissemination Fast. Typically 3-6 months from abstract submission to presentation. Slow. Can take 6-18 months (or longer) from initial submission to final publication.
Audience & Reach Audience is limited to conference attendees. Impact can be high through personal interaction and networking. Global reach through indexing in databases like PubMed. Becomes a permanent part of the scientific literature that can be cited for years.
The Strategic Pathway: Start with a Poster, End with a Paper

For most pharmacists undertaking their first scholarly project, the most logical and least intimidating path is to start with a conference presentation. This approach has several strategic advantages:

  1. It sets a deadline: The abstract submission deadline forces you to analyze your data and summarize your project by a specific date.
  2. It’s a “test run”: Presenting a poster allows you to get feedback on your work from a wide range of colleagues. The questions you receive during your poster session are invaluable clues to what needs to be clarified or strengthened in a future manuscript.
  3. It builds your CV: An accepted abstract is a scholarly accomplishment in its own right and is a great addition to your curriculum vitae.
  4. It creates momentum: The work you do to prepare the abstract and poster (literature review, data analysis, summarizing results) forms the core of your future manuscript. You’ve already done half the work.
Think of the conference poster as the “pilot episode” and the journal article as the “full season.”

17.5.3 The Gateway to Dissemination: Crafting a Winning Conference Abstract

The abstract is the single most important element of your conference submission. It is a concise, powerful summary of your entire project. A panel of reviewers will read hundreds of these, and their decision to accept or reject your work will be based solely on those ~250-400 words. A well-written abstract is clear, data-driven, and follows a highly structured format. A poorly written one is vague, confusing, and will be quickly rejected.

The Anatomy of a Structured Abstract

Almost all scientific conferences require a structured abstract with four distinct sections. Your job is to answer the core question of each section as clearly and concisely as possible.

Background

The Question: Why did you start? What was the problem you were trying to solve? Provide 1-2 sentences of context and state the specific objective of your project.

Methods

The Question: What did you do? Describe your study design (e.g., pre-post intervention), the setting, the patient population, and the specific intervention you implemented. Mention your key metrics.

Results

The Question: What did you find? Present your key findings with numbers. State the baseline data and the post-intervention data. Include sample sizes (n=) and statistical significance (p-values) if applicable.

Conclusion

The Question: What does it mean? State the main takeaway from your project. Briefly explain the implications of your findings for pharmacy practice. Avoid overstating your results.

Masterclass Table: Abstract Writing – Weak vs. Strong Examples

Project: A pharmacist-led intervention to improve statin adherence in patients with diabetes.

Section Weak, Vague Example Strong, Specific, Data-Driven Example
Background Many patients with diabetes do not take their statins. Our pharmacy wanted to improve this. The purpose of our project was to see if a pharmacist could help improve adherence. Statin non-adherence is a significant barrier to cardiovascular risk reduction in patients with diabetes. At our institution, the baseline statin adherence rate was low. The objective of this quality improvement project was to increase the proportion of patients with diabetes achieving a Proportion of Days Covered (PDC) > 80% for statin therapy.
Methods We had a pharmacist talk to patients who weren’t taking their statins. The project took place in our primary care clinic. We looked at adherence before and after the pharmacist’s help. This was a prospective, pre-post cohort study conducted at a multi-physician primary care clinic. Patients with type 2 diabetes and a baseline statin PDC < 80% were referred to a clinical pharmacist. The intervention consisted of a 30-minute motivational interviewing session and follow-up phone calls. The primary outcome was the change in mean statin PDC over 6 months, analyzed using a paired t-test.
Results After the pharmacist talked to them, patients took their statins more often. The program was a success. A total of 85 patients were included in the analysis. The mean statin PDC increased from a baseline of 58% (±15%) to 86% (±12%) post-intervention (p < 0.001). The percentage of patients achieving a PDC > 80% increased from 18% at baseline to 72% at 6 months.
Conclusion Pharmacists can help with adherence. Our program should be continued. A targeted, pharmacist-led intervention utilizing motivational interviewing significantly improved statin adherence in a high-risk diabetic population. This model provides a scalable strategy for health systems to improve a critical pay-for-performance quality metric.

17.5.4 From Abstract to Impact: Designing and Presenting a Scientific Poster

Your abstract has been accepted—congratulations! Now you must translate that concise summary into a compelling visual format: the scientific poster. A common mistake is to view the poster as a “mini-manuscript” and cram it full of dense text. This is the fastest way to ensure no one reads it. A poster is a visual medium. It is an advertisement for your work, designed to draw people in, communicate your key findings in seconds, and serve as a backdrop for a conversation.

Poster Design Principles: A Visual Masterclass
  • Follow the Abstract’s Flow: Organize your poster using the same headings as your abstract (Background, Methods, Results, Conclusion). This creates a logical path for the reader’s eye to follow, typically from top-left to bottom-right.
  • Embrace White Space: The most important element of good design is often what isn’t there. Do not fill every square inch. Generous use of white space makes your poster feel clean, organized, and approachable. A cluttered poster is a repellent poster.
  • Rule of 3s: Font, Color, and Simplicity:
    • Fonts: Use no more than three font sizes: a large one for the title, a medium one for headings, and a smaller (but still legible) one for body text. Use a clean, sans-serif font like Inter, Helvetica, or Arial.
    • Colors: Use a simple, professional color palette with no more than 2-3 accent colors. Use color strategically to highlight key results or guide the eye.
  • Graphics Over Text: This is the golden rule. Wherever you can replace a paragraph of text with a chart, a table, a diagram, or a picture, do it. Your results section should be dominated by visuals.
  • The 3-Minute Rule: A casual passerby should be able to understand the entire story of your poster—the problem, what you did, and what you found—in under three minutes just by reading the title, headings, and looking at your charts.

The Presentation: Engaging Your Audience

The poster itself is only half the battle. During the poster session, you are the final, critical component. Your job is to be an engaging host, a knowledgeable expert, and an advocate for your work.

Your 60-Second “Poster Pitch”

Just like an executive elevator pitch, you need a concise, practiced summary of your project ready to go. When someone stops at your poster and asks, “So, tell me about your work,” you should be able to deliver a compelling overview in 60 seconds. Structure it like this:

  1. The Hook (10 sec): “Thanks for stopping by. We were seeing very low statin adherence rates in our diabetic patients, which is a huge risk for heart attacks and strokes.”
  2. The Intervention (20 sec): “So, we designed a program where high-risk patients had a one-on-one motivational interviewing session with a pharmacist to identify and overcome their specific barriers to adherence.”
  3. The “Wow” Result (20 sec): “And what we found was pretty exciting. We were able to more than triple the percentage of patients who were adherent to their statins, increasing it from just 18% to over 70% in only six months.”
  4. The Invitation (10 sec): “The most interesting part was [mention a specific chart or finding]. Do you have any questions?”
This pitch gets straight to the point, highlights the most impressive result, and naturally opens the door for a deeper conversation.

17.5.5 The Final Frontier: Writing for Publication

Publishing a manuscript in a peer-reviewed journal is the pinnacle of scholarly dissemination. It is a challenging, rigorous, and often lengthy process, but the reward is a permanent, citable contribution to the scientific literature. While a full course on medical writing is beyond our scope, this section will provide a detailed primer on the structure of a scientific manuscript and the process of navigating peer review.

Deconstructing the Manuscript: The IMRAD Framework

The vast majority of scientific papers follow the IMRAD structure: Introduction, Methods, Results, And Discussion. Each section has a specific purpose.

Masterclass Table: The IMRAD Framework in Detail
Section Core Question Key Components Pharmacist Writing Tips
Introduction Why did you start?
  • Start broad: Briefly describe the importance of the problem.
  • Funnel down: Summarize what is already known from the existing literature.
  • Identify the “gap”: State what is *not* known or what problem remains unsolved.
  • State your objective: Clearly state the specific aim of your project, which directly addresses the gap.
 This is your literature review. Do not just list studies; synthesize them. Show how each piece of evidence builds the case for why your project was necessary. End with a very clear, one-sentence objective that matches your abstract.
Methods What did you do?
  • Study Design & Setting: Describe the QI methodology (e.g., pre-post study) and where it took place.
  • Patient Population: Detail your inclusion and exclusion criteria.
  • The Intervention: Describe your new process or clinical service with enough detail that another pharmacist could replicate it.
  • Data Collection & Analysis: Define your primary and secondary metrics and describe the statistical tests used to analyze them. State your Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval or waiver.
 This is the most important section for scientific rigor. Be obsessively detailed. Write in the past tense. Another researcher should be able to read this section and perfectly understand, and even replicate, your project.
Results What did you find?
  • Describe your patient population (Table 1 is classic for this).
  • Present your primary and secondary outcomes in a logical sequence.
  • Use tables and figures to display the data clearly.
  • State the data only. Do not interpret it or explain what it means.
 Just the facts. “The mean PDC increased from 58% to 86% (p < 0.001)." That's it. Let the numbers speak for themselves. The text in this section should simply walk the reader through your tables and figures.
Discussion What does it all mean?
  • Start by summarizing your main finding in one sentence.
  • Interpret your results: Explain what you think your findings mean.
  • Compare your findings to the existing literature you mentioned in the introduction. Are they similar? Different? Why?
  • Acknowledge limitations: This is critical. What are the weaknesses of your study (e.g., small sample size, single-center, lack of a control group)?
  • State the implications: What are the broader implications of your work for pharmacy practice, policy, or future research?
  • End with a strong, concise conclusion.
 This is where you tell your story. Being honest and thorough in the limitations section is a sign of a strong, confident author, not a weak study. It builds trust with your readers and reviewers.

Navigating Peer Review

You’ve submitted your manuscript. Weeks or months later, you receive an email with the decision and the reviewer comments. This can be an intimidating moment. Peer review is a critical but often bruising process. The key is to approach it methodically and without emotion.

Responding to Reviewers: A Guide to Productive Revision

Your goal is to make the editor’s job as easy as possible. Create a separate “Response to Reviewers” document. Copy and paste every single comment from every reviewer. Below each comment, write a polite, point-by-point response explaining how you have addressed their concern in the revised manuscript.

The Golden Rule: Even if you disagree with a reviewer’s comment, address it respectfully. If you choose not to make a change, provide a clear, evidence-based rebuttal for your reasoning. Never ignore a comment. A thorough, respectful response document shows the editor you are a serious and thoughtful author, making them more likely to ultimately accept your paper.