A rapid evidence‐based service by librarians provided information to answer primary care clinical questions

Abstract

Background: A librarian consultation service was offered to 88 primary care clinicians during office hours. This included a streamlined evidence-based process to answer questions in fewer than 20 min. This included a contact centre accessed through a Web-based platform and using hand-held devices and computers with Web access. Librarians were given technical training in evidence-based medicine, including how to summarise evidence. Objectives: To describe the process and lessons learned from developing and operating a rapid response librarian consultation service for primary care clinicians. Methods: Evaluation included librarian interviews and a clinician exit satisfaction survey. Results: Clinicians were positive about its impact on their clinical practice and decision making. The project revealed some important 'lessons learned' in the clinical use of hand-held devices, knowledge translation and training for clinicians and librarians. Conclusions: The Just-in-Time Librarian Consultation Service showed that it was possible to provide evidence-based answers to clinical questions in 15 min or less. The project overcame a number of barriers using innovative solutions. There are many opportunities to build on this experience for future joint projects of librarians and healthcare providers.

What Do Primary Care Practitioners Want to Know? A Content Analysis of Questions Asked at the Point of Care

“…• What kind of activities are considered "weight bearing" when counselling patients in 4 were to be broadly implemented in primary care practices, these questions, which can be seen as an expression of learners' self-perceived needs, could be used by CME providers to frame content for group learning, instead of requiring additional surveying. One of the more interesting results of our study, realized using the TGCQ classification system, was the sheer volume of treatment-related questions.…”

“…[4][5][6] On the one hand, the questions were coded using a strategy that focused on the generic type of each question. These questions were obtained during the randomized controlled trial phase of the JIT project, which used a real-time medical librarian consultation service to answer clinical questions asked by 82 physicians, 4 nurse practitioners, 1 nurse, and 1 family medicine resident; the details of this trial have been published elsewhere.…”

Development and Testing of a Literature Search Protocol for Evidence Based Nursing: An Applied Student Learning Experience

“…For example, a systematic review by Rankin, Grefsheim, and Canto (2008) summarizes a number of studies on the impact of the informationist, defined as "a new professional… with responsibility for providing highly specialized information services in the clinical setting." Others have examined the impact of librarian services on clinical practices (McGowan, et al, 2010). However, to the authors' knowledge, there have been no formal evaluations of the impact of an embedded LIS specialist on their outcome of interest, the satisfaction of EBP review team members.…”

Expert searching in health librarianship: a literature review to identify international issues and Australian concerns

“…In this context, to have an area of professional practice without objective measures calls into question the profession’s credibility 10,11 . Third, some health librarians have specialised roles based on expert searching such as supporting systematic reviews or clinical question answering services 12–17 . This has expanded the profession’s scope of practice but resulted in inconsistency as generalist health librarians who perform a range of library duties do not have the same search proficiency.…”