Tag: EAHIL 2014 conference

How committed are our young doctors to EBM?

EBM has, over the last forty years, become the fundamental principle of clinical practice – or, so we thought. Marte Ødegaard reported to the EAHIL 2014 conference about her assessment of final-year students’ knowledge management skills which they have to demonstrate in an assignment. Her analysis showed that a significant proportion of future doctors lack even basic literature searching skills.

Oslo university is addressing the problem, but many in the audience were left feeling uneasy how a similar evaluation would have turned out at our own institutions…

Medical librarians of all nations unite!

Four Scandinavian colleagues proposed that medical librarians across EAHIL collaborate in the field of Information Skills Teaching. They had carried out a survey that clearly demonstrated wide-spread support for sharing teaching materials, but also experiences.

Interestingly, a parallel effort to establish a shared resource for librarians teaching EBM started recently on an MLA forum, and led to the creation of a resource pool (hosted by Northeast Ohio Medical University) and a – still informal – mailing list. Let’s see if these two groups will join forces!

Negotiating licenses for a wide range of healthcare providers

The Spanish province of Andalusia has set up an eHealth service that provides on-line resources to all users across the healthcare system, Laura Muñoz-Gonzales reported. The new service provides an impressive range of service, replacing a large number of institutional subscriptions and delivering better value for money. To my amazement, the project met the support of institutional librarians who had to give up part of their budget towards the centralised resource purchasing!

As far as I can see, the gap in access to a decent range of information resources is widening all the time between countries with a central or national health service, and countries with an all-private healthcare system. The level of information services Laura presented currently has no match in countries with a private healthcare system.

Evidence Based Librarianship: a nice example from Norway

Marion Mühlburger reported a lovely example how the medical library at Bergen university used the methodology we are all familiar with from our EBM literature searches, which also shows where our professional approach may hit difficulties. When an overhaul of their facilities was required (in the usual context of print journals disappearing and leaving space vacant), the library team decided to give the needs of those who actually use that library space, a prime rôle in the planning.

Evidence was created in the form of a student survey and other user involvement the findings of which informed the planning for the re-purposing of the existing space. However, a major obstacle in the process turned out to be that the hierarchy which had to approve the decisions, did not always agree with the evidence gathered from the actual users. This resulted in a six-months delay between planning and implementation.

Oliver Obst’s advice in the discussion was best not to involve those in power before the library had shored up strong support from its clients…

Reinventing the ZB Med as ‘Leibniz Information Centre for Life Sciences’

Dr. Ulrich Korwitz, Librarian of the ZB Med, reported about the new strategy of the ZB Med in the wake of the evaluation two years ago. An extensive user consultation was undertaken, and the input from professors and research fellows used as a starting point for the new strategy.

Some highlights amongst the many adjustments to the ZB operations:

  • shift towards an advisory rôle to academic medical libraries, especially in the field of license negotiation (they will even hire a business lawyer)
  • focus on research and clinical practice
  • services to the pharmaceutical industry have been dropped
  • constant innovation which will include regular evaluation of assisting products and services
  • strong commitment to staff development, including a decrease of junior and increase of senior positions

This is a bold move by the ZB Med, or rather: the ‘Leibniz Information Centre for  Life Sciences’. Especially the advisory services in the field of license negotiation were met with great approval by the audience.