“What could explain my patient’s pain and discolored legs after ankle surgery?”
“How might I incorporate a systematic review of literature about epilepsy in my upcoming publication?”
“My patient only speaks Tagalog. How can I find health education materials on bladder cancer in Tagalog?”
“What should I search, and in what databases, to get the information I need?”
If you are lucky enough to have access to a medical librarian, he or she may well be your first point of contact for questions like these. We live in a golden age of information, and healthcare professionals enjoy unprecedented access to data, research, case studies and publications from around the world. Yet sifting through it all to find what you need, when you need it, is daunting. That is where medical librarians come in.
Medical librarians are skilled at researching quickly. They work for hospitals, clinics, medical schools, pharmaceutical companies and insurers.1 In academic medicine, they help physicians and scientists review, synthesize and analyze the literature, prepare articles for publication and maintain database access for clinicians. They may also teach continuing medical education courses on research and information literacy. Their expertise runs so deep that some organizations call them informationists.2
Hospital surveys show that medical librarians measurably improve patient outcomes and lower healthcare costs. They can influence a patient’s diagnosis, the tests run, the choice of treatment and the advice given to the patient and her family.3 When Allina Health set out to improve spine surgery performance at some of its clinics, leadership turned to its medical library. The library delivered a series of literature searches on spinal surgery outcomes and found the pertinent journal articles. From that, the organization built an evidence-based care model with guidelines for treatment and data monitoring. As a result, Allina Health spine patients receive better care and report lower pain levels.4
Evidence-based medicine is one place medical librarians shine. Defined as “the conscientious, explicit, judicious and reasonable use of modern, best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients,”5 evidence-based medicine aims to bring more research evidence into the clinical setting. It is a complex task, and it has both devotees and skeptics. But even the hesitant agree that at times it is crucial, and in those moments a medical librarian is the perfect partner for gathering and evaluating the data you need to treat your patients.
Medical librarians are true members of the healthcare team. At many organizations they attend clinical rounds with physicians, ready to research any question that comes up.6 Sometimes they are even present during surgery.7 If your hospital or organization has a medical library, get to know the librarian! When healthcare providers have strong relationships with medical librarians, everyone benefits.8