One Institution - 2 Podcasts - Our experience

Objectives: Podcasts have increased in popularity since the early 2000s. The number of medical podcasts created by physicians for patients and/or health care providers is increasing. With the increase in podcasts' popularity and their convenience, podcasts have significant potential for use as an educational tool. Methods: Faculty at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC have created two podcasts, the Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) podcast and the Down Syndrome Center (DSC) of Western Pennsylvania Podcast. This paper is a descriptive review of both podcasts. The PHM podcast was created for health care providers who care for hospitalized children. The DSC podcast was started as a source of reliable information for parents of children with Down syndrome. Results: The PHM podcast has over seventeen thousand downloads in over sixty-seven countries. The DSC podcast has over twenty-three thousand downloads in over sixty-nine countries. The PHM podcast has an option for listeners to get CME credit after they listen to the podcast if they click on a link at the University of Pittsburgh website and answer a few questions. Data from responses to these questions demonstrates that 83% of the respondents reported that the podcast either highly or very highly enhanced their knowledge of the subject matter, and 86.8% reported that the content of the podcast was highly or very highly relevant to their work. Conclusion: These results suggest podcasts are a popular and useful tool for disseminating information to families and health care professionals.