Why are they not accessing it? User barriers to clinical information access

Authors

  • Elizabeth Laera Medical Librarian, McMahon-Sibley Medical Library, Brookwood Baptist Health, Birmingham, AL https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2325-0793
  • Karen Gutzman Head, Research Assessment and Communications, Galter Health Sciences Library & Learning Center, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6331-4451
  • Angela Spencer Assistant Professor, Medical Center Library, Saint Louis University, St. Louis MO https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6233-053X
  • Charlotte Beyer Director, Boxer Library, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, North Chicago, IL
  • Saskia Bolore Sales Manager, JAMA Network, American Medical Association, Chicago, IL
  • John Gallagher Director, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0952-1067
  • Sean Pidgeon Publishing Director, Science & Medicine, Oxford University Press, New York, NY https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6888-5659
  • Ryan Rodriguez Customer Engagement Manager, BMJ, Hoboken, NJ

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2021.1051

Keywords:

Information Seeking Behavior, Information Access, User Behavior, Library, Librarian, Publishing, Physician, Clinical Researcher, Clinical Faculty, Paywalls, Financial Limitations, Physicians, User Experience

Abstract

The Medical Library Association’s InSight Initiative provides an open and collaborative environment for library and industry partners to discuss vexing problems and find solutions to better serve their users. The initiative’s fifth summit, continuing work from the previous summit, focused on understanding how users discover and access information in the clinical environment. During the summit, participants were divided into working groups and encouraged to create a tangible product as a result of their discussions. At the end of the summit, participants established a framework for understanding users’ pain points, discussed possible solutions to those points, and received feedback on their work from an End User Advisory Board comprising physicians, clinical researchers, and clinical faculty in biomedicine. In addition to the pain point framework, participants are developing MLA InSight Initiative Learning content with modules to educate librarians and publishers about critical aspects of user behavior. The 2020 Insight Initiative Fall Forum will serve as a virtual home for constructive dialogue between health sciences librarians and publishers on improving discovery and access to information.

References

Medical Library Association. MLA Insight Initiative [Internet]. The Association [cited 5 Jun 2020]. <https://www.mlanet.org/p/do/sd/topic=345&sid=8300>.

Akers KG. Report from the Medical Library Association’s InSight Initiative summit 3: bridge building: what bridges to build and how. J Med Libr Assoc. 2020 Apr;108(2):321–33. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2020.894.

Urquhart C, Hepworth J. The value of information supplied to clinicians by health libraries: devising an outcomes-based assessment of the contribution of libraries to clinical decision-making. Health Libr Rev. 1995 Sep;12(3):201–13. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2532.1995.1230201.x.

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: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.101.1.007.

Covell DG, Uman GC, Manning PR. Information needs in office practice: are they being met? Ann Intern Med. 1985 Oct 1;103(4):596–9. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-103-4-596.

Del Fiol G, Workman TE, Gorman PN. Clinical questions raised by clinicians at the point of care: a systematic review. JAMA Intern Med. 2014 May;174(5):710–8. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.368.

Aakre CA, Maggio LA, del Fiol G, Cook DA. Barriers and facilitators to clinical information seeking: a systematic review. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2019 Oct;26(10):1129–40. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocz065.

Alving BE, Christensen JB, Thrysøe L. Hospital nurses’ information retrieval behaviours in relation to evidence based nursing: a literature review. Health Inf Libr J. 2018 Mar;35(1):3–23. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/hir.12204. Epub 12 Jan 2018.

Medical Library Association. Insight Initiative: summit 4 [Internet]. The Association [cited 5 Jun 2020]. <https://www.mlanet.org/p/cm/ld/fid=1646>.

Medical Library Association. Insight Initiative: summit 5 [Internet]. The Association [cited 5 Jun 2020]. <https://www.mlanet.org/p/cm/ld/fid=1700>.

Butzen T. Going remote: making MLA Insight Initiative a virtual success [Internet]. Doody’s Core Titles [cited 5 Nov 2020]. <https://www.doody.com/dct/PublicFeaturedArticle.asp?SiteContentID=342>.

Gardner T, Inger S. How readers discover content in scholarly publications: trends in reader behaviour from 2005 to 2018 [Internet]. Renew Publishing Consultants; Aug 2018 [cited 7 Jun 2020]. <https://renewconsultants.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/How-Readers-Discover-Content-2018-Published-180903.pdf>.

Cook DA, Sorensen KJ, Wilkinson JM, Berger RA. Barriers and decision when answering clinical questions at the point of care: a grounded theory study. JAMA Intern Med. 2013 Nov 25;173(21):1962–9. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.10103.

Fowler SA, Yaeger LH, Yu F, Doerhoff D, Schoening P, Kelly B. Electronic health record: integrating evidence-based information at the point of clinical decision making. J Med Libr Assoc. 2014 Jan;102(1):52–5. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.102.1.010.

Hansen J. Librarian consults through EPIC: new opportunities for collaboration and education. Med Ref Serv Q. 2019 Jul–Sep;38(3):293–9. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02763869.2019.1623610.

Daei A, Soleymani MR, Ashrafi-Rizi H, Zargham-Boroujeni A, Kelishadi R. Clinical information seeking behavior of clinicians: a systematic review. Int J Med Inform. 2020 Jul;139:104144. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2020.104144.

Gillum S, Williams N. Promoting library visibility through creative programming. Med Ref Serv Q. 2019 Jul–Sep;38(3):236–51. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02763869.2019.1623616.

Swanberg S, Mi M, Engwall K, Bulgarelli N. Community engagement at an emerging academic medical library: a three-pronged outreach model, Med Ref Serv Q. 2018 Jul–Sep;37(3):234–48. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02763869.2018.1477707.

Maggio LA, Moorhead LL, Willinsky JM. Qualitative study of physicians’ varied uses of biomedical research in the USA. BMJ Open. 2016 Nov 21;6(11):e01284. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012846.

RA21: Resource Access for the 21st Century [Internet] RA21 [cited 5 Jun 2020]. <https://ra21.org/>.

Hoy MB. New tools for finding full-text articles faster: Kopernio, Nomad, Unpaywall, and more. Med Ref Serv Q. 2019 Jul–Sep;38(3):287–92. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02763869.2019.1629215.

Open Athens [Internet]. Open Athens [cited 5 Nov 2020]. <https://www.openathens.net/>.

Himmelstein DS, Romero AR, Levernier JG, Munro TA, McLaughlin SR, Tzovaras BG, Greene CS. Research: Sci-Hub provides access to nearly all scholarly literature. eLife. 2018;7:e32822. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32822.

Ozkan J. Open access: will the paywalls come tumbling down? Eur Heart J. 2019 Jul 14;40(27):2180–1. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehz493.

Else H. Thousands of scientists run up against Elsevier’s paywall. Nature. 2019 Feb 05. (Available from: <https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00492-4>. [cited 5 Nov 2020].)

Solomon M. A confederacy of databases—federated searching: flying under many flags. Searcher. 2004;12(7):24–9.

Reilly BH. Text-mining and libraries: summary of a conversation with publishers. Charleston Adviser. 2013 Jan;14(3):59–60. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5260/chara.14.3.59.

Hall A, Walton G. Information overload within the health care system: a literature review. Health Inf Libr J. 2004 Jun;21(2);102–8. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2004.00506.x.

McKibbon KA, Fridsma DB, Effectiveness of clinician-selected electronic information resources for answering primary care physicians’ information needs. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2006 Nov–Dec;13(6):653–9. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1197/jamia.M2087.

Thiele RH, Poiro NC, Scalzo DC, Nemergut EC. Speed, accuracy, and confidence in Google, Ovid, PubMed, and UpToDate: results of a randomised trial. Postgrad Med J. 2010 Aug;86(1018):459–65. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/pgmj.2010.098053.

Duran-Nelson A, Gladding S, Beattie J, Nixon LJ. Should we Google it? resource use by internal medicine residents for point-of-care clinical decision making. Acad Med. 2013 Jun;88(6):788–94. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0b013e31828ffdb7.

Schwartz K, Northrup J, Israel N, Crowell K, Lauder N, Neale AV. Use of on-line evidence-based resources at the point of care. Fam Med. 2003 Apr;35(4):251–6. (Available from: <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12729308/>. [cited 5 Nov 2020].)

Perrier L, Farrell A, Ayala AP, Lightfoot D, Kenny T, Aaronson E, Allee N, Brigham T, Connor E, Constantinescu T, Mullenbach J, Epstein HAB, Weiss A. Effects of librarian-provided services in healthcare settings: a systematic review. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2014 Nov–Dec;21(6):1118–24. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/amiajnl-2014-002825.

Downloads

Published

2021-01-07

Issue

Section

Commentary