Topics in Librarianship & Information Science

One of the first and many aspects of the INFO 200 Information Communities class that resonated with me is that information communities can exist in any kind of institution whether it be formal or informal such as all libraries, schools, hospitals, the local coffee shop, pop culture fan club, sports clubs, and even families on a neighborhood block. In whatever community people choose to be associated with, they all come to meet, provide and share/exchange information together virtually online or in person. Seth Godin states in his book, Tribes, “Human beings can’t help it: we need to belong.” (Godin,  2008). According to Godin, tribes are also comprised of people with a shared interest and a way to communicate.” (Godin, 2008). Even when meeting someone for the first time at a social function and discovering that they share the same interest(s), it feels natural to want to share and communicate one’s knowledge and good feelings about that specific interest possibly becoming life-long friends in this process.

Although I’ve enjoyed creative writing at certain times of my life, writing reflective blogs on many of the topics of researching information communities, information needs, and information-seeking behaviors of individuals or professionals within those communities has been a learning experience in which I could develop and express my reflective thoughts while performing serious research on a health information community and express knowledge sought and gained  in writing the blogs along with the information sources survey, book review, literature  review and research paper.

Through attending the Panopto lectures, working through the class modules, and attending the guest lectures, I gained many valuable insights and perspectives on various aspects of information communities and issues they face such as: challenges to intellectual freedom and censorship, time constraints and/or limited access to print and/or electronic resources and technology, funding of services, professional training, and costs of operation.

Although this ties in with the reflection blogging and although there were occasions when I was pressed for time  in reading and responding to other students’ class blogs, I gained valuable insights and perspectives into the kinds of communities they selected to research, the issues and challenges of those communities in seeking information and  how the methods and thought processes they used to research their particular information community’s information needs, information preferences and information-seeking behaviors.

In conclusion, while I gained valuable insights by exploring and researching the information needs, information seeking-behaviors, and other important aspects of health information communities, there are areas that I would like to explore regarding health information communities in different sectors of the health field such as medical and/or veterinary university libraries. However, depending on what special, public, or academic library or information center that I ultimately work as an information professional, there are several guidelines or individuals that will inform my practice as an information professional. These include:

• Administrative personnel
• Patrons and/or community members
• Founding and guiding principles such as codes of ethics established by various professional associations including: American Library Association (ALA) and International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) (Garnar, M., 2015).
• Emerging trends and technologies such as iPad, PDAs, and “Cloud Computing (Abram, 2015)
• Lifestyle and social trends such as “Smart” device expectations, Information literacy, and Environmental and “green” concerns (Abram, 2015).

In one way or another, all of these individuals, groups, and issues will place demands on me as an information professional in all sectors of the library and information field to not only be aware of current social, intellectual, and environmental concerns, but to continually think ahead for my organization and for my professional development. (Abram, 2015).

References

Abram, S. (2015) Librarianship: A Continuously Evolving Profession, Information Services Today:  An Introduction, New York: Rowman and Littlefield, p.44.

Garner, M. (2015) Information Ethics, Information Services Today:  An Introduction, New York: Rowman and Littlefield, p. 291.

Godin, S. (2008) Tribes: We Need You to lead Us, New York: Penguin Group, p. 2-3.

 

There is an abundance of current and emerging information technologies in which physicians can have timely and ease of access to a patient’s medical health condition thereby allowing them to provide their patients with accurate diagnoses and ultimately successful treatments.  The two technologies that I will discuss and illustrate are data preservation of Electronic Health Records (EHRs), and the current development Scanadu Scout, a 21^st century medical “tricorder” based on the original Star Trek television show.

A variety of different types of medical data exist in patient medical records. These data take a number of different formats, such as lab test results, CT scans, EKGs, X-rays, etc. These records must remain easily accessible to medical personnel and be easy to access and search. “The ability to apply standard and interoperable solutions to manage and preserve EHRs (lab test results, CT scans, physician notes, etc.) and migrate, distribute, replicate, and access these records from legacy formats and platforms to advance standard formats and operating systems are vital for clinical  care and medical research.” Researchers at the National Institute of Standards & Technology, through collaboration with government standard development organizations, and industry, are working at creating a “standard preservation infrastructure to support a wide variety of EHRs, data formats, and delivery mechanisms as well as identify, evaluate, and integrate standard and best practice long-term preservation and management tools to migrate, replicate, and distribute EHRs.” Through this project, researchers will be able to:

• Design and develop a universal messaging mapper to parse and analyze an extensive range of protocols,
• Store clinical data in a universal archetype-based record format, and
• Develop system that allow for long-term searching, retrieval, and access of stored EHRs.

While establishing an interoperable framework enabling the exchange of EHRs between legacy and future EHR formats and capturing clinical knowledge independent from technology and concurrently providing a standard interface, physicians and health professionals will ultimately be able to access and update clinical knowledge, thereby providing higher-quality treatment at the point- of-care. (Chang, NIST).

Scanadu Scout, similar to the medical tricorder on Star Trek which is “designed and programmed” to be a diagnostic tool measuring vital signs and used by Dr. McCoy in “field treatment” situations on a particular planet, also monitors hearty heart, temperature, Sp02, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure-cuffless in under 40 seconds. A person can take readings by holding the device to their left temple. The data is then sent to their smartphone via Bluetooth where they can track and trend their vitals over a period of days, weeks or months. Scanadu Scout also affords users the ability to save past scans and monitor their personalized baselines as a result of their vital signs. While this device allows for personal health management and improvement, it is not a substitute for a primary care physician or specialist.  With these readings or any noted and significant changes in weight loss, blood pressure, or blood sugar, patients should contact and consult their primary physician regarding treatment or decision making in terms of new prescriptions or changes in dosages. Walter de Brouwer, the CEO and founder of Scanadu profoundly predicts that “as we become more informed about our health, doctors will no longer act as accountants of our health records but information analysts.” (Profile, 2015)

REFERENCES

National Institute of Standards and Technology. “Long-term Data Preservation and Management of Electronic Health Records,” available online at  http://www.nist.gov/healthcare/emerging/recordpreservation.cfm, last accessed Nov. 21, 2015.

Palestine, Eileen & Mandel, Geoffrey (eds.) Star Fleet Medical Reference Manual, (1977). Paramount Pictures Corporation.

Profile: Walter de Brouwer. (Fall, 2015). Active Over 50, pp. 16-19)

A young woman, approximately 35 years old, walks into the hospital library and scans the library shelves to hopefully find information in solving her difficult condition of infertility. She sees and greets the health librarian at the front desk who greets her and asks, “Hello Miss. What information may I help you find today?” The woman looks around to see if other non-medical information users are in the library. She quietly tells the librarian her infertility issue and asks if there is any information on the health implications of egg donation and the possible chances of achieving conception with this method.

A teenage girl walks into the hospital library looking anxiously around the library and at the online catalogs and computers. The girl, noticing that the computers are all being utilized by medical personnel, starts to get fidgety. The medical librarian noticing the anxious behavior, calls to her and asks, “May I help you with anything, Miss?” The girl starts to stammer, but manages to quietly tell the librarian. “I’m becoming sexually active with my boyfriend, but I need information about effective birth control methods.”

A casually, but neatly dressed 12 year old boy saunters into the hospital library carrying his school backpack. The librarian notices and smiles at him and yet surprised as she doesn’t see many preteen youth visit or utilize the health library. Unlike the previous visitors, this boy is the least self-conscious. He walks up to the librarian and says, “Hi! I was wondering if you have books on tattoos.” The librarian is surprised, but remains calm. “Did you want a book with pictures of tattoos or a book that talks about tattoos and how to stay healthy while having one?” The boy stops to think and decides if he wants to tell the librarian that he wants to get one because his friends have tattoos. “I think the book that talks about tattoo health would be helpful. My parents are okay with the idea of a nice tattoo graphic, but they are also concerned that I might be too young to have one for health reasons.” The librarian nods at him saying, “I can understand their concern, but I’ll show you two books that we have on tattoos and you can read and discuss them with your parents and make your decision from there.”

All of these scenarios involve sensitive, delicate and controversial issues concerning the information seekers’ needs. “Moral dilemmas are a frequent and seemingly unavoidable aspect of librarianship.” (Buchanan, Henderson, & Hauptman, 2009). Fortunately for these fictional information seekers/users, the health information professional was able to serve them with diligence, sensitivity, and understanding of their plights. However, while there are many professional health and other librarians who carry out their service and reference duties with expertise and finesse in dealing with sensitive and controversial situations, there are librarians in all information sectors who have difficulty, if not reluctance in putting their moral and personal biases aside while assisting information seekers.

According to the article, Christian Librarians and the ALA Ethics of the Library Bill of Rights (Kaihoi, S. 2015), an online study was conducted to seek opinions of librarians who self-identified as Christians of several denominations regarding the ALA’s ethical standards as embodied in the Library Bill of Rights (LBR). While 72% of the respondents in the majority supported the LBR overall, 40% of respondents differed in certain ethical areas primarily in material content such as pornography and harmful materials, etc. and believe that these “could or should be limited” especially in regard to children. According to Kaihoi, these statistics and statements “seem to suggest that many Christian librarians do sometimes perceive a need to place of the value of defending what they perceive to be true and right above the call to remain professionally impartial about certain kinds of contents.”

While I believe that these librarians’ beliefs in defending their Christian moral values and truths is commendable, I also believe that the ethics of the ALA, LBR, and the MLA codes of ethics all encourage and support the value of discernment and critical thinking in the materials that patrons and health information consumers read and watch.

The ALA, in Article II “upholds the principles of intellectual freedom and resists all efforts to censor library resources.” The LBR in Articles I-IV support the provision that “books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves”, “presenting all points of view  on current and historical issues”,  “resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas” and “should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility provide information and enlightenment.” The MLA Code also supports these ethics as it “promotes access to health information for all and creates and maintains conditions of freedom of inquiry, thought, and expression that facilitate informed health care decisions” in its Society subheading.

References:

American Library Association. Code of ethics of the American Library Association, available at http://www.ala.org/advocacy/proethics/codeofethics/codeethics

American Library Association. Library Bill of Rights, available at http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill

Kaihoi, Scott. “Christian Librarians and the ethics of the library bill of rights,” Theological Librarianship, v.8 no. 1, March, 2015

Medical Library Association. Code of Ethics for Health Sciences Librarianship, available at http://www.mlanet.org/p/cm/ld/fid=160

Wilkinson, Lane. Principlism and the ethics of librarianship. The Reference Librarian, v.55: 1-25, 2014 Taylor and Francis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A comparison of peer-reviewed and professional articles covering medical professionals’ perceptions of Information Sources and Services.

Peer-Reviewed Article–The value of library and information services in patient care:  Results of a multi-site study.

This article discusses the results of a large multi-site study that the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Middle Atlantic Region (NN/LM MAR) conducted by forming a planning group to replicate the landmark study referred to as “The Rochester Study”. Their objective was to study the value and impact of library and informational service on patient care.

Methods

Multiple methods were used including focus groups of librarians for planning purposes: web-based survey of physicians, residents, and nurses and 24 follow-up, semi-structured interviews. Two primary research questions in the current study asked:

• Whether information resources used were perceived as valuable by physicians, residents, and nurses,
• Whether the obtained information was considered to have had an impact on patient care.

 

 Survey

 Survey respondents were asked five key questions to determine the relevance and value of print and electronic resources used. These include:

1. The respondent’s profession and the types of work their position entailed;
2. Think of a circumstance (within the last six months) you were looking for patient care, not available  in the patient record, electronic medical record system, or lab results and answer survey questions based on that circumstance.
3. Select a principal diagnosis of patient to related circumstance and select specific resources you used to answer the question.
4. Answer questions about each information source used including methods used to access the resource where you conducted the search.
5. Whether you found information needed and whether finding and using this information was time efficient in treating your patient.

Results

The 56 participating library sites served physicians, residents, and nurses in 118 hospitals in the NN/LM MAR regions (excluding New England) and 4 sites from Canada.

• Approximately 172,463 of medical professionals served participated in the survey.
• Overall, 16:122 responses represent response rate of 10%.
• Response rate for physicians was 10%
• Response rate for residents was 12%
• Response rate for nurses was 7%

Response rates by library sites varied considerably:

• 21 sites- Response rate-10% or less
• 25 sites- Response rate-11%-20%
• 10 sites-Response rate-21% or more

Responses related to Nature of Information Respondents provided with a list were asked,

• “Which principal diagnosis of patient to whom your situation is related? (Select only one answer).”

Most common diagnoses were cancer and heart disease.

•  “What type of information did you need to answer your question? (Select all that apply).”
  

Over half of respondents checked therapy (54%). Other responses selected were:

• Diagnosis-(53%)
• Drug information-(52%)
• Clinical guidelines-(48%)
• Patient Safety (23%)
• Adverse effects (29%)
• Clinical procedure (29%)

 

 Value and Impact

Variables organized around four themes:

• Quality of Information
• Cognitive value
• Contribution to quality patient care
• Time saved

The majority who rated information as relevant, accurate, and current suggesting that perceived quality of information was high.

Cognitive Value

 This area was also rated high as to whether the respondent’s memory, details, and facts confirmed their prior knowledge, beliefs, or provided new knowledge.

Contribution to Quality of Patient Care

Results were high including potential usefulness of information in the future,its clinical value, and of its resulting in a better informed clinical decision.

Information Time Saved

Overall, 85% responded that finding and having information saved time.

Information Resources Used

Four resources most frequently used included:

• Online Journals (46%)
• PubMed/MEDLINE (42%)
• Up To Date (40%) Used and reviewed highly by residents
• Online books (30%)

Information Needs Satisfied

• 59% responded “completely” found needed information
• 52% of nurses (only partially) found needed information due to time limitations
• 64% of physicians found needed information
• 63% of residents found needed information

Note: Due to time and space limitations, interview results will not be discussed in this article.

Professional Article-Advocating the promise of E-Health through Information Technology

Due to challenges of finding an article that is not peer-reviewed and containing informative and thorough data regarding medical professionals’ perceptions of medical resource value, I chose this article by Crystal Sharp who discusses the many technological contributions of international health colleagues and the benefits these emerging technologies provide medical professionals and their patients.

Note: These presentations took place at E-Health 2009, the Second ICST Conference on Electronic Health Care for the 21^st Century held in Istanbul, Sept. 23-25, 2009 (www.electronic-health.org).

Due to space limitations, I will discuss two technologies that best assist physicians in their diagnosis and treatment of patients.

Crystal Sharp, an information specialist, states that information professionals “have the added responsibility to keep abreast of, be advocates for, and participate in promoting health information literacy, evidence-based care, and sound information management principles.” Eric van der Goot, European Union Joint Research Centre, introduced and presented MedISYS as an “open source real time automatic data-gathering and analysis tool for surveillance and epidemiology.”  “MedISYS covers 2,200 sources worldwide with a primary emphasis on Europe, and includes local, regional, national, and international coverage in many languages. While van der Goot was careful to emphasize that while MedISYS facilitates human media monitoring activities, he cautioned the audience that “it is not another Google; it is not a search engine.” One of MedISYS’ many benefits to medical professionals is its data presentation layer which “includes convenience links to machine translation programs, where available; a display of other MedISYS categories and of persons and organizations found in text; and a display of online English translations of Chinese and Arabic.” This is a useful and valuable technology for physicians who work with patients of diverse cultures and nationalities.

Another similar trending e-health technology  introduced in 2009 by Floriana Grasso, University of Liverpool, is the European research project, PIPS (Personalized Information Platform for Life and Health Services). PIPS “investigates the use of an e-health platform for an intervention aimed at promoting physical activities among diabetic patients. PIPS uses a “feedback-based support system for the improvement of personal performance in physical activity and relies on a pedometer for assessing the patient’s daily activity and on a motivational strategy to provide personalized support” similar to the FitBit being used today even among non-diabetic patients.  Although this is very useful and beneficial to diabetic patients, it is still an important practice for physicians to work with their patients in monitoring their fitness progress, regulate their medications and tracking weight loss to gain maximum benefit and long term health from this technology.

Comparison

While both articles covered useful and beneficial resources and technology for medical professionals and consumers, both sources covered this information in several different ways as shown in the SJSU tutorial on “Finding Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed Articles”.

The peer-reviewed article, “The value of library and information services in patient care: … was not only comprehensive and direct in meeting my academic information need, but was very specialized and written for researchers and professionals in the academic and medical fields.

Furthermore, even as I was able to comprehend the information and statistics provided, I needed to look up unfamiliar words in an online medical dictionary.

In contrast to this article, the professional article: Advancing the promise of E-Health through Information Technology, was written by professionals and practitioners in the health technology arena and written for professionals and practitioners in the field while still being comprehensible to the lay reader.

A final fact regarding content that I observed in the comparison of these articles is that the E-Technology article, while professional, cited Crystal Sharp as the contributing author, but did not provide references, bibliography or list of the presenters contributing to the article. The scholarly peer-reviewed article, however, not only contained references, but also tables with statistics depicting the information in percentages provided by the respondents.

References

Marshall, J. G., Sollenberger, J., Easterby-Gannett, S., Morgan, L. K., Klem, M. L., Cavanaugh, S. K., … & Hunter, S. (2013). The value of library and information services in patient care: results of a multisite study. Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA, 101(1), 38.

Sharp, C. (2010). Advancing the promise of e-health through information technology. Online, 34(2), 34-39.

Mcknight, J. and Block, P. The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods. (2010) Barrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco.

I chose to read The Abundant Community for two reasons. The first being the title itself. It was not only intriguing to me as an aspiring health information professional, but as a citizen yearning to be part of an abundant community both personally and professionally. Secondly, the title denotes a message of physical health within a neighborhood/community as well as its citizens ultimately creating a community that is personally and socially satisfying as a result of eating healthier food and preserving our natural resources.

After reading the first chapter, my first overall impression of The Abundant Community was of skepticism and idealization concerning the possibility of citizens creating an abundant community. As I read, I found it hard not to become nostalgic for the neighborhoods of my youth where kids, parents, and neighbors knew each other and socializing was more spontaneous. Many neighbors would drop by on a whim. In those days, neighbor friends visited our home and would casually exchange information with my parents about each other’s skills and interests and how they could contribute their natural gifts or talents to help each other and each other’s kids. I remember  my mother helping one friend with a cultural project for school and that same friend’s father taking me out for extra driving practice to pass Driver Training.

The authors, John McKnight and Peter Block, while discussing the negative effects of our consumer society on families, neighborhoods, communities, and the environment, assert that community citizens have capabilities to express needs and gifts to contribute to our neighborhoods and to each other in creating a more sustainable and satisfying life while minimizing our dependence on excess material goods in order to validate our overall personal value.

“Community, as defined by the Encyclopedia of Community, is a specific group of people sharing a common interest.” In his book, Community, The Structure of Belonging, Peter Block states that “Communities are human systems given form by conversations that build relatedness” which is also the  premise of The Abundant Community. The authors organize their concepts and proposals into three parts.

In Part I, John McKnight and Peter Block discuss the shift from citizen to consumer, define the consumer way as “lives of scarcity and consumption,” and define the citizen way as “lives of abundance and cooperation.” They further illustrate the “Elements of Satisfaction” which resonated with me since my learning community is health oriented. In regard to health, they emphasize that “Our neighborhoods are the primary source of our health.” These include “…, personal behaviors, social relationships and physical environment.”  The authors poignantly assert that, “Our institutions can offer only service – not care – for care is the freely given commitment from the heart of one to another; it cannot be purchased.” I agree with the authors that while our physicians can examine and treat us and our family members with medications or recommend physical therapy at the minimum, we also need to take responsibility for our health and those of our families into our own hands and seek information on alternate therapies when the initial medicines fail or cease to help.

A final and important observation for this chapter is the authors stating and defining three terms that are not only fundamental to creating an abundant community, but that are fundamental to health learning communities.  These terms are listed and defined as follows:

• Association: “Three or more people who come together by choice and mostly without pay because of a common interest. The common interest may be simply to be together, or it may be to change the world.”
• Neighborhood: “The place where you live and sleep. It could be your block or the square mile surrounding where you live. It may or may not have a name.”
• Community: “A general term to describe what occurs outside systems and institutions.” Similarly, in relation to our class lectures and readings, the authors also state that “it also refers to an aggregation of people or neighborhoods that have something in common. It is both a place and an experience of connectedness.”

In Part Two, McKnight and Block shift their discussion from critiquing the consumer society and its consequential costs to our personal lives, neighborhood and communities to considering the possibilities and actions we as citizens can take to bring our communities back to a more sustainable and satisfying life. These possibilities include “placing hospitality at the center of newly activated communities and the encouragement and empowerment of citizens to utilize share, and exchange their natural gifts of teaching, nurturing caring for the youth, infirmed and elderly, the land and welcome those on the margins” as Elfreda Chatman  focused her doctoral research on the marginalized individual, defined as “someone that lives in two small worlds of culture, which are very different from each other.”

The authors then include and define the terms Association and Associational life that conveniently fit into Peter Block’s definition of community. Association is further defined as “fundamentally, a group of people who have a shared affinity” and further defined as “a primary place in community where individual capacities get expressed.” Associational life, according to the authors, begins with a group of people who are drawn together for some reason, and that reason is what makes it work.” They provide examples of bike clubs, pet clubs and health clubs. Another example belonging to an association or fitting into an associational life regarding my health information community are volunteers working with health information librarians to help and train medical professionals with information seeking strategies and troubleshooting computer issues.

The authors in Part three continue to discuss the value of associations and associational life, their strong relationship and central(ness) to democracy, and giving ourselves power to wean ourselves from our dependency on consumer goods and the consumer society.

Another statement the authors make that resonates with health Information communities is that, “Every association is empowering and powerful, because it acts as the amplifier of the gifts, skills, and talents of each member. It is the principal community means of helping people to give their gifts.”

For an association to empower citizens to utilize and share their gifts, The authors state that to create abundant communities, it is vital to: ”elevate and make more visible people who have connecting capacity and, encourage each of us to discover the connecting possibility in our own selves.”

While I believe these are noble ideas for more functional communities and neighborhoods, I find it idealistic to believe that the “average” person will have the spiritual insight to overlook a major deficiency in character or even a slight disability of someone who is slow in thinking or moving in today’s fast-paced society.  The authors profoundly state that “The greatest community weakness is that we haven’t seen them and felt their loneliness. We have often ignored or even feared them. And yet their gifts are our greatest undiscovered treasure!” They conclude, “Therefore the Connectors’ Table [such as health information professionals, bracketed content mine] need to pay special attention to the people at the edge, the people with the names that describe their empty half rather than their gifted full half. For the strength of our neighborhood as greatest when we all give all our gifts.”

Conclusion

Therefore, library health professionals can take heed, glean and implement many of the inspiring ideas and concepts of the authors, McKnight and Block to enhance their health resource centers and information communities. While health librarians may be knowledgeable, focused and dedicated in their pursuit to find information for physicians and other health professionals, they can develop ways of creating a hospitable and welcoming environment (without disturbing those quietly studying and/or utilizing the Center’s resources) to all who visit, explore and seek information for personal and professional reasons.

One final and very poignant thought by the authors is “every local community of any kind is a group of specially connected people. But the very fact of their special connection necessarily creates outsiders.” One area where health information professionals can create an abundant community is to observe visitors or students that display special talents of helping friends or family members search for information on the Health Resource Center’s online catalog or help a medical professional troubleshoot a glitch. Many community hospitals have auxiliary or volunteer programs where the public can join and share their gifts. El Camino Hospital has such an auxiliary with the Health Resource Center being one of them. With encouragement and effective mentoring by health information professionals, volunteers connected to physicians and health professionals utilizing their gifts of troubleshooting and information seeking strategies may be inspired to study medicine, health information librarianship, or information technology.

References:

Block, P. (2008). Community: the structure of belonging. (2008) Barrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Francisco.

Fulton, C. ““An Ordinary Life in the Round: Elfreda Annmary Chatman” in Libraries and the Cultural Record. (2010) 45(2), p.239

Mcknight, J. and Block, P. The abundant community: awakening the power of families and neighborhoods. (2010) Barrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco.

While the El Camino Hospital Health Library & Resource Center is open to both the general public, medical and health personnel, I have primarily observed nurses, doctors and medical personnel, and nursing students utilize the electronic and print resources on the days and times I visited the center. As a result of the clientele I have observed, I have chosen to focus on and discuss the information needs and information seeking behaviors of physicians and/or residents, and nurses and/or nurse practitioners.

Information Needs

Wilson “suggested that “information need” was not a fundamental need such as the need for shelter or the need for sustenance, but rather a secondary order need which arose out of the desire to satisfy the primary needs.”(Wilson, T.D. 2000). Wilson also suggests that “it may be preferable to refer to ‘information seeking towards the satisfaction of needs.’”  (Robson, Robinson, 2013). As I observed the various medical  professionals, nurses, and presumably nursing and medical students entering and sitting at the health resource center’s computers to search for information or prepare for tests, each of them had a need to satisfy, albeit cognitive, educational, and/or professional (seeking information on the best medical treatment of a patient).

In one literature review, nurses’ and physicians’ information needs have been defined as “expressions of missing information that is required to accomplish a specific task, which in this case is managing patient care.” (Clarke, 2013)

A number of studies conducted by various researchers have investigated the information needs of resident and attending physicians, nurses, nursing students, and nurse practitioners.

In a recent study conducted by Clarke regarding types of primary care physicians’ and nurses’ needs, several broad categories of needs were determined from 24 journal articles. Seventeen articles discussed information on diagnosis, 15 articles mentioned medications, 14 articles mentioned treatment, 10 articles mentioned prognosis, eight mentioned epidemiology, and seven articles mentioned etiology.

Surveys and questionnaires revealed that resident physicians and attending physicians had the same information needs; their most common being related to diagnosis. The nurses who were surveyed stated that they often seek information regarding protocols and procedures. The one similar information need shared among nurses and physicians was information regarding treatment for patients. What I found interesting, yet not surprising is that while these studies and articles were primarily based in the United States, physicians in other countries shared many of the same information needs such as accessible and timely delivered information sources that can enable nurses and physicians to provide the best patient care. (Clarke, Belden, Koopman, 2013).

Barriers to Information Seeking

Although the term “Information Overload” was not stated specifically by physicians as a barrier to information seeking and retrieval, this syndrome does tie in with time as one of the barriers to physicians’ and nurses’ effective information seeking. According to Bawden et al, “’Information Overload’ occurs when information received becomes more of a hindrance rather than a help when the information is potentially useful.” They further add that “information overload is the result of more information becoming available when new information technologies make this increasing amount of information available to end users.”(Clarke, 2013). When the “information overload” strikes when a health professional has limited time to find the information, the physician or nurse resorts to Zipf’s Principle of Least Effort–“It is human nature to want the greatest outcome for the least amount of work.” According to this principle, “each individual will adopt a course of Action that will involve the expenditure of the probable least average of his work—in other words, the least effort.”(Case, 2012­–Looking for Information). In the health professional’s situation, this can mean consulting with a colleague or a specialist with expertise in a particular field of medicine instead of spending inordinate amounts of time looking for information online or in the hospital library.

Geography in this study was also mentioned as a barrier, but due to time and word limits, this “barrier” may be discussed in future blogs or the term paper.

Information Seeking Behaviors

There are at least three definitions of Information Behavior that can be applied to Information Seeking in the medical care field and its various settings. According to Wilson, Information Behavior, itself, is defined as the “Totality of human behavior in relation to sources and channels of information.” This definition was very applicable to my observations of the medical/health personnel, and students who utilized the hospital’s health resource center. These users not only came to utilize the electronic and print resources available, they seemed to put their very beings into what they were seeking, studying, and learning. While they were always focused in what was on the computer screen, their bodies at times tended to change stance depending on what information they unexpectedly encountered while seeking or how they responded emotionally or cognitively to the information they were reading or learning.

Information Seeking Behavior is defined by Wilson as “purposive seeking of information as a consequence of a need to satisfy a goal.” The needs of physicians and nurses drive their “purposive seeking” of information to satisfy their goal(s) of providing the best treatment for their patients. According to the aforementioned study, health professionals “satisfy their information needs” by utilizing various resources such as specialized professional journals, medical textbooks, and online medical databases and websites to name a few.

Wilson defines “Information Use Behavior” as physical and mental acts involved in incorporating the information found into the person’s existing knowledge base. In addition to the changes in stance as in my observances, the physical entering of keywords and search terms is a vehicle for incorporating the accessed information into the person’s/healthcare professional’s existing knowledge base. The mental acts involve utilizing the existing or basic knowledge that a healthcare professional has about a particular disease or condition and also cognitively utilizes synonyms in alternate search queries to successfully and ultimately access needed information to satisfy their goal.

References

Case, D. O. Looking for Information, United Kingdom: Emerald Publishing Group, Ltd. (2012), p. 175.

Clarke, M. A., Belden, J. L., et. al. “Information-seeking behavior analysis of primary care physicians and nurses: a literature review” in Health Information and Libraries Journal, 30 (2013), p. 184.

Wilson, T. D. “Human Information Behavior” in Informing Science, 3 no. 2 (2000), p. 51.

Robson, A. and Robinson, L. “Building on models of information behavior: linking information seeking and communication” in Journal of Documentation, Emerald Group Publishing, Ltd., 69, No. 2 (2013), p. 179.

Zipf, G. K. “Human behavior and the principle of least effort” in Oxford, England: Addison-Wesley Press Human behavior and the principle of least effort. (1949). xi 573 pp.

While many suburban housewives in the 1950s through the 1970s supported and gave advice to pre- and post-natal mothers in their neighborhoods and houses of worship, and eventually watched over each other’s children when needed, the sharing of female or any health concerns among suburban women (unless debilitating or terminal) began to decline as their baby boomer children reached their teenage years.

However, as many youth (especially young women) starting using “The Pill” with at least one sex partner, and other youth were experimenting with the latest recreational drugs, parents who became aware of these activities were hesitant, if not reluctant to share their deepest concerns with close friends for fear of scandal and ostracism in their neighborhoods, social, and religious communities.

When some young people began engaging in pre-marital relations with multiple sex partners, they not only risked or experienced unwanted pregnancies, but many also contracted sexually transmitted diseases. Many youth, for fear of their parents finding out and/or being the cause of scandal in their families, neighborhoods, and religious communities, privately sought solace, advice and treatment and even information regarding their conditions in college health resource centers, Planned Parenthood, and county health clinics.

One of Joan Durrance’s and Karen Fisher’s definition of an information community “includes a group that comes together with a common interest around creation and exchange of distributed information.” An information community in the previously mentioned scenarios “may also be built around different focal points and topics.” Furthermore, in the event that many such youth and their peers will seek information in these health information centers/communities, especially in today’s information age, they may also meet up, connect and exploit the internet and technology to obtain more information for and from each other or communicate with and support each other through online chat, e-mail, or text messaging.

I am still exploring and observing my “Learning Community” at the Health Library and Resource Center at El Camino Hospital in both Mountain View and Los Gatos, CA. At this point, I have observed three of the five characteristics of a learning community that this Health Library demonstrates. These are as follows:

Information communities exploit the information qualities of technology and yield multiplier effects for stakeholders (those affected by actions of the communities). 

During my initial visit to the Health Resource Center, I noticed that there are three database computer terminals available for the public and medical staff to use. These terminals are equipped with:

Medline with full text and are Members-Only databases designed for doctors and provides nearly 3,400 full-text journals.

Health Source Consumer Edition contains a collection of consumer health information available to libraries worldwide where consumers can access information at a public library or remotely through their local library with a library card and PIN number or password.

Up-to-Date (Available only at the Health Resource Center). This is an exceptional resource that provides clinical and patient education.

The Internet also provides access to subscription-only databases specializing in clinical and consumer health. This is a very interesting and informative website and provides online videos that show various surgical procedures such as an Angioplasty and Coronary Artery Bypass Graft.

“By definition, information communities depend on their ability to share information and information resources and “content-rich institutions, such as libraries, not surprisingly, have been system centered, requiring enormous energy to develop and make accessible extensive collections.”

This is definitely true of the El Camino Hospital Health Library and Resource Center. In addition to the information shared on the Internet and medical databases, members have access to a variety of current medical and consumer health books, journals, newsletters, audio/video tapes and DVDs focusing on and explaining various medical conditions. According to their information brochure, the library is open to the public and checkout privileges are available.

The third characteristic, that best distinguishes the Health Resource Center, is “Information Communities foster social connectedness within the larger community.”

As the Health Library and Resource Center is a community health services benefit, it also relies on community support and strongly encourages and appreciates donations in person or online. While browsing the materials, I found, among the many other hospital services brochures, an Auxiliary Services brochure listing the many volunteer opportunities where community members can donate their time, talent, and passion in the following areas:

o  Within the Health Resource Center itself
o  Hospital greeters
o  Drivers
o  Hospital escorts
o  and others

Volunteering in the hospital community not only contributes to the hospital community, visitors, families, and patients, but also provides an enriching experience for the volunteers.

References

Durrance, Joan C. & Fisher, K.E. (2003). Information Communities. Retrieved from (http://libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login?url=http://knowledge.sagepub.com/view/community/n248.xml)

El Camino Hospital Health Library & Resource Center (http://www.elcaminohospital.org/library)

Rielly, Edward J. (2003). The 1960s. Westport, London: Greenwood Press.

Hello everyone!

I’m Georgette Masters. I work in a public library as a library specialist, a post I have held for 20 years. At the public library, my tasks include working with the public in several locations, including the library’s technology center where I provide basic technical support. I also worked for 10 years at SRI Consulting, where I was the Assistant Librarian of the Chemical Marketing and Research Division. At SRI Consulting, I supported 20 research scientists by providing reference services, including database searches and acquisitions of journals and resources required to support the team.

Prior to working in the library field, I had the opportunity to work as a Central Sterile Supply Technician at the prestigious Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston while my husband was in graduate school. My tasks included decontaminating and sterilizing instruments and supplies used by doctors and nurses in the Institute to treat cancer patients.

I am an avid reader. My favorite reading genres are non-fiction and biographies. I often find some of my more interesting reads by serendipity as I browse the shelves or process returns at the library. I also enjoy watching vintage television and movies.

I am considering several areas in the special library career pathway. Although I haven’t made a final decision, becoming an archivist or an information professional in a health library are interesting and I would like to research this area. I enjoyed the work at Dana-Farber to such an extent that the experience inspired me to integrate my interests in libraries, healthcare, and medicine. I decided to pursue my MLIS in order to expand my employment opportunities in the library profession.

When I am not working or studying, I enjoy listening to music and playing the guitar. I love animals and enjoy spending time with my husband and our two cats.