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:
- The respondent’s profession and the types of work their position entailed;
- 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.
- Select a principal diagnosis of patient to related circumstance and select specific resources you used to answer the question.
- Answer questions about each information source used including methods used to access the resource where you conducted the search.
- 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 21st 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.
You have some great paragraphs here that can be utilized in your future assignments. it is so interesting that the professional resources are elusive.