The value and impact of information provided through library services for patient care: a systematic review

The value and impact of information provided through library services for patient care: a systematic review

library information services

Objective: An updated systematic review was carried out of research studieslooking at the value and impact of library services on health outcomes forpatients and time saved by health professionals.Methods: A comprehensive systematic search was undertaken of the publishedliterature to September 2003 in , , , , , theCochrane Controlled Trials Register and Google. Some handsearching was carriedout, reference lists were scanned and experts in the field were contacted. Twenty-eight research studies of professionally led libraries for health-care staff, includingclinical librarian projects, met the inclusion criterion of at least one health or ‘timesaved’ outcome. Papers were critically appraised using internationally acceptedcriteria. Data were extracted and results were summarised using a narrative formatas the studies were heterogeneous and precluded a statistical analysis.Results: There is evidence of impact from both traditional and clinical librar-ian services. The higher quality studies of traditional services measured impactsof 37–97% on general patient care, 10–31% on diagnosis, 20–51% on choice oftests, 27–45% on choice of therapy and 10–19% on reduced length of stay. Fourstudies of clinical librarian projects suggested that professionals saved time asa result of clinical librarian input, and two of these studies showed evidenceof cost-effectiveness. However, the clinical librarian studies were generallysmaller, with poorer quality standards.Conclusions: Research studies suggest that professionally led library serviceshave an impact on health outcomes for patients and may lead to time savings forhealth-care professionals. The available studies vary greatly in quality but thebetter quality studies also suggest positive impacts. Good practice can be gatheredfrom these studies to guide the development of a pragmatic survey for libraryservices that includes the direct effects for patients among the outcome measures.

Weightman,Alison L

Williamson,Jane

Wiley

2005-03-21

open access

1471-1834

ENGLISH

Article

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2005.00549.x

The value and impact of information provided throughlibrary services for patient care: a systematic review

2005-03-21

London