ICML 2009: Great Hall 2 Session 24

Theme: Translating the Evidence

Time: 10.30-12.00
Date: Thursday 4th September 2009
Chair: Cheryl Hamill

The impact of information literacy training on clinicians entering the workforce
Dr Rowena J Cullen, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Megan Clark, Auckland Medical Library, New Zealand

Dr Rowena Cullen is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Management at Victoria University and teaches on the MLIS degree. She is author of Health Information on the Internet, and several research papers (in JMLA, and ICML8) on family practitioners' use of information for clinical decision making

Megan Clark is Medical Librarian at the University of Auckland and initiated the original study, which was reported at ICML8, as Medical Librarian at the Wellington Medical Library.

Rachel Esson was Medical Librarian at the Wellington Medical Library during the research, and is currently Head of Research and Learning services at Victoria University Library.

Abstract
The ability of clinicians to search the medical literature, retrieve relevant research, and critically evaluate and apply the findings to their own practice, are key skills in developing evidence–based practice in the health work force. Wellington Medical Library undertakes this training for students as a required part of their coursework in the 4th year of their Medical training, and has routinely used test scores to assess learning outcomes of students. Cohorts of 4th year students from 1998-2003 have now graduated and are completing their final years as house surgeons and registrars in a variety of specialty areas. In a longitudinal study, following on results reported at ICML8, the researchers have followed up with a sample of clinicians from these cohorts, comparing outcomes at the end of training, and several years later, seeking to investigate the following issues:

• What are the information seeking behaviours of these young clinicians in relation to queries that arise during clinical practice?
• How much do they retain of the training undergone during their clinical training years,
• Has the training they received had an impact on their current ability to search, retrieve and evaluate information relevant to their clinical practice?

The research team tracked down a sample of clinicians from each cohort, interviewing each person and asking them to complete a search, based on a scenario related to their specialty. Findings related to the research questions, and the ongoing use of evidence based information practice by this group of young clinicians will be reported.

Literature landscapes: Investigating the contribution of journals and bibliographic databases to palliative care
J J Tieman, Flinders University, Australia

Jennifer Tieman is Director of the Australian Palliative Care Knowledge Network project. This project is developing web based resources supporting the palliative care community within Australia, specifically the CareSearch website. The project is based at Flinders University. She has been involved in research relating to the development of content filters in health as well as bibliometric analyses of the literature and evidence base for palliative care. She has contributed to a series of systematic reviews relating to palliative care and primary care and been part of the development of evidence based guidelines for the provision of palliative care in residential aged care facilities and for the aged in the community.

Abstract:
Background: Palliative care is an increasingly important area of clinical practice and health service delivery. Accessing literature is integral to evidence based practice, yet searching for palliative care literature is challenging. The heterogeneity of patient populations and conditions as well as the multidisciplinary nature of care can make identifying and retrieving relevant evidence and literature difficult.

Study Details: This study is a bibliometric analysis of the nature of the literature that supports palliative care. It examines the growth in palliative care citations on four databases (Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE and PsycINFO) and looks at which journals are publishing palliative care literature. Specifically two questions were investigated:

• What has been the growth in unique palliative care citations (i.e. not also indexed on Medline) over time on CINAHL, PsycINFO, and EMBASE?
• Which indexed journals are publishing literature relevant to palliative care?

Study Findings: The unique deduped material (against Medline) across all years was 50.0% for EMBASE, 68.8% for PsycINFO and 72.9% for CINAHL. Journal ranking based on the number of palliative citations published in each of the sample years identified forty six journals in the top 25% in any of the three sample years.

Conclusion: The study shows that there is a substantial and increasing amount of palliative care literature. The multiplicity of database sources and the number of journals contributing to palliative care literature has implications for knowledge management and knowledge dissemination in the discipline.

An Online and Social Media Training Curricula to Facilitate Bench-to-Bedside Information Transfer
Jane Blumenthal, Health Sciences Libraries, University of Michigan, United States

Jane Blumenthal is director, health sciences libraries, at the University of Michigan Universty Library. She is a member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals (AHIP) at the distinguished level and has been active in a variety of professional organizations, including the Medical Library Association (MLA) and the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL). She is currently a member of the MLA Board of Directors. Her past activities include serving as chair of the National Program Committee for the 2008 MLA annual meeting, chair of the Leadership and Management Section of MLA, membership on MLA’s Credentialing Committee, and service on the Board of Directors of the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries.

Abstract:
Objectives: Translational research focuses on the bench-to-bedside information transfer process — getting the information from researchers into the hands of clinical decision makers. At the same time, researchers who manage international research collaborations could benefit from increased knowledge and awareness of online collaboration tools to support these projects. Our goal was to support both needs through building awareness and skills with online and social media.

Methods: The Library developed a curricula targeted specifically to academic researchers focused on collaboration technologies and online tools to support the research process. The curricula was delivered as face-to-face small group or individual instruction duplicated as podcasts and in other online media. Topics ranged from brainstorming and writing tools (eg. online mindmapping, wikis, Google Docs, Zoho) to online project management tools (eg. Smartsheet and Huddle) through novel communication tools (eg. chat, private chatrooms, Skype, and virtual worlds) to innovative publication and presentation modalities (eg. blogs, open access journals and prepress archives, YouTube and Slideshare). Results: Project in process, due to complete in December 2008.

Conclusions: Online and social media are practical tools for supporting distance collaborations relatively inexpensively while offering the added benefit of placing selected information in online spaces that facilitate discovery and discussion with clinical care providers, thus supporting the fundamental research processes at the same time as promoting bench-to-bedside information transfer.

Where to from here? Research prospects for user instruction
Cecily A Gilbert, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Australia

Cecily Gilbert is currently Hospital Librarian at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth, Western Australia. Her work has largely been in academic and health libraries around Australia. Long-standing interests are in user search behaviour and librarian mediation of searching skills.

Abstract:
Teaching clinicians about searching is a common event for most health librarians. Over the years our techniques and philosophy have been refined, such that we can now identify some principles for "successful" user education. However, some of our certainties may have been disturbed by changing search technologies and shifts in clinicians' expectations. The "Googling for a Diagnosis" event publicised in the journals recently captured real-life clinician search strategies that largely side-stepped Medline and similar resources. It exemplified the 'fit for purpose' search approach used by many clinicians: definitely not textbook, but anecdotally we know a lot of searching happens this way.

So what should we teach, and how should we teach it in the 21st century ? This panel is a discussion intended to gather views on the future research priorities in user education, particularly for the clinician in the health care setting. The discussion will include informal contributions from the earlier speakers in this session, as well as - we hope - lots of input from the audience. Trigger phrases might include:

- If only we knew...?
- What would result if we...?
- Wonder if others also get this user feedback after searching...?

Please come along with your ideas for research directions you'd like to see included on a user education research register.