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Tag: medical librarians

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Image of lightbulb and text "Need only the best information for your research, patients or staff? Yes we do that!"
Image from the Medical Library Association

October is National Medical Librarians month. Started by the Medical Library Association in 2001, it is “an annual observance that recognizes and appreciates the critical role that health information professionals play in healthcare, research, and education.“

This year’s theme is Yes, We Do That! Librarians and library staff at Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library do everything from literature searching and systematic review service and consultation, to providing support for virtual anatomy and 3D printing. Here are some of the things Himmelfarb librarians and library staff did over the last academic year:

  • Answered 2,188 reference questions through chat, email and at the Himmelfarb service desk, including 574 in-depth consultations for literature searches, systematic reviews, predatory journal consultations and for other reference and research support services.
  • Taught 725 education sessions to 7,422 attendees.
  • Ran 186 3D print jobs for users.
  • Loaned over 3,800 books and other materials to users.
  • Borrowed 372 consortium loan service books for users and provided over 1,500 articles, chapters, and books through interlibrary loan services to users. 
  • Purchased and processed 400+ new print books for Himmelfarb collections and 9 new anatomy models for the Bloedorn lab on the third floor - stop by and check them out!
  • Licensed and activated 619 new ebooks for users.
  • Provided service for 1.2 million links to full-text electronic resources. 
  • Added  2,307 records representing GW SMHS, GW School of Public Health, and GW School of Nursing scholarly output to the Health Sciences Research Commons (HSRC). 192,814 items were downloaded from HSRC by researchers at 7,704 institutions in 216 countries!
  • Published 16 instructional videos to the Himmelfarb YouTube channel representing over 2 hours of original content, with high-quality closed captioning edited manually by library staff. Our new videos were viewed 465 times (13.27 total hours of watch time), out of 23,227 views (1,292 hours) for all content on our channel.
  • Created 9 and maintained 341 Research Guides on topics including APA Citation format, library tutorials, guides to databases, and resource guides by subject. Research Guides had over 2 million page views by users at GW and beyond.

Himmelfarb library staff members are here to support your research, education, and clinical information needs. Reach out to us through our chat service (always staffed by a Himmelfarb librarian or reference specialist), email at himmelfarb@gwu.edu, phone at 202-994-2850, or stop by our service desk.  

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October is National Medical Librarians Month! This year’s theme is Avoid Misinformation! Take the Right Path: Partner with Your Medical Librarian. The Medical Library Association is raising awareness of the value health sciences librarians bring to clinical information needs. Health sciences librarians can find the best evidence to answer your questions. 

Graphic displaying findings of the 2013 NN/LM study demonstrating impact of medical librarians in patient care

In 1992, the landmark “Rochester Study”1 demonstrated a relationship between information services provided by health sciences librarians and improved patient outcomes. The study sampled a group of 448 physicians in the Rochester, NY area. 80% of the 208 physicians who returned their questionnaires said that they probably or definitely changed some aspect of patient care based on information received from a hospital librarian. The National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) sponsored a follow up study whose results were published in 2013.2 Focus groups, surveys, and phone interviews gathered input from physicians, residents and nurses from 118 hospitals about a recent incident in which they had sought information for patient care. The key findings were:

Library and information resources were perceived as valuable, and the information obtained was seen as having an impact on patient care.

Electronic access to information resources from multiple locations has increased the ability of health professionals to use these resources for improved patient care.

The roles of librarians are diversifying to include management of electronic resources, user instruction and support, specialized research and clinical information search services, and involvement in institution-level quality improvement.

Marshall et al. (2013)

A similar 2016 study conducted in the UK measured clinical librarian’s impact on patient outcomes. It found a wide range of positive interventions including “direct contributions to choice of intervention (36%) diagnosis (26%) quality of life (25%), increased patient involvement in decision making (26%) and cost savings and risk management including avoiding tests, referrals, readmissions and reducing length of stay (28%).”3

Librarians at Himmelfarb are all well versed in the principles of evidence-based practice. Many are expert searchers, with advanced training on databases like PubMed and Scopus. Our reference team has years of experience conducting systematic reviews and other in depth searches. When you have an information need, whether it be for research or patient care, turn to our team of professionals at Himmelfarb Library! You can reach us at himmelfarb@gwu.edu or call 4-1850 or chat with us 8:30am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday.

  1. Marshall JG. The impact of the hospital library on clinical decision making: the Rochester study. Bull Med Lib Assoc. 1992 Apr;80(2):169–78. PMID: 1600426
  2. Marshall JG, Sollenberger J, Easterby-Gannett S, Morgan LK, Klem ML, Cavanaugh SK, Oliver KB, Thompson CA, Romanosky N, Hunter S. The value of library and information services in patient care: results of a multisite study. J Med Libr Assoc. 2013 Jan;101(1):38-46. doi: 10.3163/1536-5050.101.1.007. PMID: 23418404
  3. Brettle A, Maden M, Payne C. The impact of clinical librarian services on patients and health care organisations. Health Info Libr J. 2016 Jun;33(2):100-20. doi: 10.1111/hir.12136. Epub 2016 Feb 17. PMID: 26887653.

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Medical librarians have been important advocates for health literacy, so it’s appropriate that we celebrate the profession the same month we recognize the importance of health literacy. Healthy People 2030 updated their definition of health literacy to include both personal and organizational health literacy:

  • Personal health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.
  • Organizational health literacy is the degree to which organizations equitably enable individuals to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.

The National Library of Medicine and the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) play a key role in delivering health literacy programs and information resources. MedlinePlus piloted in 1998 as a consumer health information website. It provides a trusted, evidence-based information resource that includes resources in Spanish and over 40 other languages on medical topics, tests, drug information, and genetics. Health check tools including calculators and questionnaires are available.  MedlinePlus Connect is a free service that allows linkage of patient information to the EHR.

Medical librarians support health literacy through programs like InformationRx services that provide tailored patient education materials assembled by librarians to patients at the request of attending physicians. Medical librarians also do outreach initiatives, like train the trainer programs for community lay health workers, frequently supported by NNLM grants. The Medical Library Association provides consumer health information specialization training for librarians who provide health information services to the public.

Medical librarians have been active in the fight against the Covid infodemic. At the Eskind Biomedical Research Library, Vanderbilt University, librarians supported nursing staff to make sure they had easy access to the most up to date information when communicating with patients and they did outreach to nurse educators and patient advocacy groups. The Medical Library Association maintains a Covid-19 Resource Guide for Patients and the Public.

Looking for quality consumer health information resources? Himmelfarb Library has a Consumer Health Resources Guide including patient education materials from AccessMedicine and ClinicalKey for Nursing, consumer health websites, and drug information. Need more help?  Contact our reference staff at himmelfarb@gwu.edu or chat us!

Walker P. (2021). The library's role in countering infodemics. Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 109(1), 133–136. https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2021.1044

Whitney, W., Keselman, A., & Humphreys, B. (2017). Libraries and Librarians: Key Partners for Progress in Health Literacy Research and Practice. Studies in health technology and informatics, 240, 415–432 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5724359/

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