Background:
In academic medicine, the first presentation of a scholarly product is often a poster or oral presentation at national conferences. Only about half of these presentations are eventually published, suggesting the conference may be the author’s only opportunity to disseminate information about their work. Studies have shown that posters have the most impact when combined with other educational modalities such as handouts, multimedia, or supplemental information available on the internet. Quick response (QR) codes are two-dimensional bar codes that direct users to a website and have been used for marketing to consumers. We hypothesized that QR code inclusion on a presentation would allow conference participants to access supplemental online materials and facilitate post-conference networking, leading to broader and longer-lasting benefits for the authors.
Purpose:
To evaluate the effectiveness of QR codes for disseminating information at a national conference.
Description:
A QR code was added to all posters and presentations (n= 11) from the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Division of Hospital Medicine at the Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) conference, July 23-27, 2014, which had over 800 attendees. Presentation modalities included clinical case reports (5 posters, 2 oral), research results (1 oral), and 3 interactive workshops. The QR codes, when scanned, sent viewers to a privately hosted website created with Moodle open-source learning management software. Users accessing the site via the QR code were given immediate guest access to a page where they could find additional information about the presentations, contact the authors, and leave comments. Visitors scanning the QR code were asked to complete a short survey assessing why they chose to scan the code. Site traffic was recorded for two weeks prior to, the week of, and four weeks after the meeting. There were 8 hits to the website and no survey attempts during the study period. Reasons for low QR code usage may include the heavily clinical content of our presentations, which may be less likely than research studies to promote collaboration. Anecdotally, many conference attendees were unfamiliar with the QR code and lacked a QR code scanner application on their smart phone.
Conclusions:
Despite the recent surge of QR code placement on advertising and merchandise, its utility in academic settings remains unclear. Marketing and business studies show that about 1 in 5 smartphone users have scanned a QR code on their device, but the population of physicians we studied seemed to have a limited understanding of the concept. Nonetheless, we believe there is potential for QR codes to augment conference presentations. Future plans include posting usage instructions near the presentations, adding the code to a business card rather than statically on the presentation itself, and recruiting additional divisions within our hospital to maximize exposure at upcoming national meetings.