Clinical librarians, a new tribe in the UK: roles and responsibilities

Abstract

Aims: The aims of this research were to determine the background, education, training experience, roles and responsibilities of practising Clinical Librarians (CL) in the UK. This paper reports the findings of a survey undertaken in 2007 at the third Clinical Librarian conference.This research builds on research undertaken by Sargeant in 2002 andWard in 2004, and can be considered as part of a longitudinal study of the role of the CL in the UK. Objectives: The objectives of the research were to define and gain a broad understanding of the role of the CL in the UK highlighting similarities and differences amongst the professionals and provide evidence for a baseline of skills and activities for the CL role. The type of sampling used was Judgemental. Results ⁄ analysis: Results ⁄ analysis detail the skills and activities undertaken by CLs. Searching for information for Clinicians was the activity most frequently undertaken. Developing good relationships with other healthcare professionals was considered essential. Two-thirds of the respondents held a postgraduate library qualification. Conclusions: Crucially a new model for the UK CL role is derived drawing on the findings of this study and the existing literature. Librarians' information skills and knowledge. Implications for Policy• Clinical Librarians need to be valued by the NHS not merely liked.• Effective performance measures are required for Clinical Library Services.• Wider dissemination of the effective practice of Clinical Library Services is required.

Expert searcher, teacher, content manager, and patient advocate: an exploratory study of clinical librarian roles

“…The lack of a consisfenf tifie for the clinical role appears to be an ongoing issue [1,11,17]. One possible reason that this study found, as did Ward, was fhaf clinical duties were just one aspect of our participanfs' overall positions [15].…”

“…These clinical librarians (CLs) have been cast in roles ranging from the "traditional" (such as performing literature searches and promoting library services) to less traditional, more embedded roles (such as attending case conferences and participating in patient care rounds) [1,3,[7][8][9][10]. In 2003, Wirming described the CL role: "to support clinical decisionmaking and/or education by providing timely, quality-filtered information to clinicians at the point of need" [11].…”

“…Librarians have been supporting patient care teams in clinical settings for more than thirty years [1,2], providing benefits to medicine such as saving clinicians' time [3], decreasing costs [4], supporting decision making [5], and improving overall patient care [6]. These clinical librarians (CLs) have been cast in roles ranging from the "traditional" (such as performing literature searches and promoting library services) to less traditional, more embedded roles (such as attending case conferences and participating in patient care rounds) [1,3,[7][8][9][10].…”

Enhancing Resident Morning Report with “Daily Learning Packages”

“…The clinical librarian evaluates the literature to find the most relevant articles for the patient team. 2 The new clinical librarian plan began with a meeting with the head of Graduate Medical Education and the residency coordinator to get their ideas on how the librarians might get involved with the residents. The librarians discussed librarian attendance on patient rounds; however, participants decided that rounds were already too long with too many people.…”

Designing A Specialist Post-Graduate Qualification and Continuing Professional Development Structure For The Health Librarian Workforce of The Future

“…The authors note that the Pilot NeLH would be one of the main elements of the newly established National Knowledge Service, based around a central website (a core collection) with links to 'commissioned websites' (specialist resources), and that work has entailed 'procurement and licencing'. This establishes NeLH as a knowledge management tool in the domain of collection development and resources management responsibilities.Clinical librarianship(Harrison & Beraquet, 2009), clinical education(McKibbon & Bayley, 2004), and clinical governance have all been identified as areas of specialist work, with the development and use of clinical guidelines to support evidence-based practice highlighted as areas of increased activity in the future Holst et al (2009). stress the importance of librarians helping hospitals achieve their 'mission-critical' goals related to clinical care, management of operations, education, innovation and research, and customer service.From saving hospitals thousands of dollars per year to saving patients' lives, hospital librarians fulfil many mission-critical roles in today's hospital.…”