How do library services impact on patient care? Alison Weightman

How do library services impact on patient care? Alison Weightman on behalf of the Quality Group of the Library & Knowledge Development Network (UK)

Systematic Review Weightman AL and Williamson J, on behalf of the LKDN Quality & Statistics Group The value and impact of information provided through library services for patient care: a systematic review. To be published in the Health Information and Libraries Journal in March 2005

Systematic Review • Research studies of the effect of professionally led libraries, including clinical librarian services, on health outcomes for patients and/or ‘time saved’ by health professionals • Literature search to September 2003 in LISA, ERIC, Medline, Embase, Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, Google + handsearching & contact with experts • 28 research studies met the inclusion criteria • Narrative summary of heterogeneous studies

Traditional library: Some reported changes • General impact on clinical care (n=6): 37-97% • Diagnosis (n=7): 10-93% • Choice of tests (n=6): 13-51% • Choice of therapy (n=4): 13-45% • Advice given to patient (n=3): 10-19%

Clinical librarian: Some reported changes • Diagnosis (n=3): 37-95% • Choice of therapy (n=2): 51-97% • Time saved by health professionals (n=4): Positive but largely unquantified responses

Conclusions from Review There is evidence that information provided by professionally led library services can lead to health benefits for patients and time saved by health professionals. The quality of existing research varies but the high quality studies (with a lower risk of bias) also suggest benefits. Good practice can be harnessed to guide the development of a practical and ‘low-bias’ user survey for librarians to use when assessing the impact of their library on health professionals and patient care.

Guidance for a practical low-bias survey • Appoint researchers who are independent of the library service • Agree an objective set of questions with input from library users • Ensure that replies are anomymous and that respondents know this • Survey all members of a chosen user group or a random sample • Ask for responses about an individual case of library use (critical incident) rather than general use • Combine a questionnaire survey with interviews to obtain a rounded view of the impact of the library service

Developing the survey tools • A team from the United Kingdom, USA and Australia • Are developing a questionnaire survey.. • and a follow up interview with a smaller (random) sample of respondents

FIRST DRAFT

Next steps • The draft questionnaire and interview outlines are being reviewed & improved by a number of health service and academic librarians in the UK and USA • We hope to pilot the survey tools with users in the UK (and other European settings?) as well as USA and Australia • The results will be published in a peer reviewed journal • If you would like to know more, please contact Alison Weightman (WeightmanAL@cf.ac.uk)

How do library services impact on patient care? Alison Weightman