Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (Journal)
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Free Access to Point of Care Resource Results in Increased Use and Satisfaction by Rural Healthcare Providers
No full textA Review of:
Eldredge, J. D., Hall, L. J., McElfresh, K. R., Warner, T. D., Stromberg, T. L., Trost, J. T., & Jelinek, D. A. (2016). Rural providers’ access to online resources: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 104(1), 33-41. http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.104.1.005
Objective – To determine whether free access to the point of care (PoC) resource Dynamed or the electronic book collection AccessMedicine was more useful to rural health care providers in answering clinical questions in terms of usage and satisfaction.
Design – Randomized controlled trial.
Setting – Rural New Mexico.
Subjects – Twenty-eight health care providers (physicians, nurses, physician assistants, and pharmacists) with no reported access to PoC resources, (specifically Dynamed and AccessMedicine) or electronic textbook collections prior to enrollment.
Methods – Study participants from a previously identified underserved rural area were selected and contacted by email. Interested participants were able to enroll through a link in the email invitation and then contacted by a member of the research team. Study participants were stratified by geographic region and occupation, then randomized and allocated to receive free access to either Dynamed or AccessMedicine for six months. Usage and satisfaction were determined prior to intervention and after six months of use for the allocated resource through survey data. Other survey data collected included demographic information, how long participants took on average to locate clinical information, what participants’ preferred information sources were for clinical information and patient information, willingness to pay for access to information, and usage and satisfaction of other resources including free medical websites, fee-based websites, print scientific journals, PubMed or MEDLINE, general web resources, UpToDate, etc. Participation was voluntary and those enrolled were able to withdraw at any time. Data related to the subjects/topics searched in the intervention resources were not collected and all identifying participant information was removed following the linkage of the pre-intervention survey, the resource access data, and the post-intervention survey.
During the intervention period medical students on the research team provided technical support and training to study participants including phone and email support and in-house training videos.
Pre- and post-intervention user satisfaction and frequency of use of 13 health resources were compared with doubly repeated ANOVA measures, adjusted using Huynh-Feldt to reduce Type 1 error rate. Cohen’s d-statistic was used to determine the effect size difference.
Main Results – The authors hypothesized that clinicians would prefer and be more satisfied with the clinically oriented Dynamed rather than the textbook based AccessMedicine, and that these two resources would be preferred over other resources normally utilized by participants. Participants in the Dynamed arm reported an increase in the use of Dynamed, but no significant change in the use of AccessMedicine. Participants in the AccessMedicine arm reported an increase in use of AccessMedicine, but no increase in the use of UpToDate or Dynamed, despite the fact that these participants did not report access to UpToDate upon study enrollment. Reported usage of the other 13 resources varied across time indicating a highly significant Resource main effect. That is, the effect of the intervention, regardless of the study arm and the time of assessment, was statistically significant. Reported use of the 13 resources was higher in the Dynamed arm, though it is important to note that reported use and level of satisfaction was higher at baseline and posttest for the Dynamed arm indicating a potential randomization error. An increase in satisfaction with only AccessMedicine was reported in the AccessMedicine arm while an increase in satisfaction with UpToDate, Dynamed, and AccessMedicine was reported in the Dynamed arm. In terms of reported use, Cohen’s d indicated an increase of +1.50 for Dynamed users compared to 0.82 for AccessMedicine users. Both arms reported an increase in the number of searches, the success of searches and satisfaction with the level of information obtained from searches. Neither intervention resulted in a change from baseline related to participants’ willingness to pay for regular access to an online health information resource.
Conclusion – Free access to online health information resources is a potential benefit to health professionals in terms of usage and satisfaction, and participants utilized point of care tools more heavily than the textbook-based resource thus supporting the authors’ hypothesis
Education and Criminal Justice Faculty Value Electronic Serials over Print to Support Professional Activities
No full textA Review of:
Jones, G. F., Cassidy, E. D., McMain, L., Strickland, S. D., Thompson, M., & Valdes, Z. (2015). Are serials worth their weight in knowledge? A value study. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 41(5), 578-582. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2015.07.004
Objective – To determine the faculty assessed value of print and electronic serials.
Design – Qualitative survey.
Setting – Doctoral research institution in the southern United States of America.
Subjects – 122 tenured or tenure-track faculty from the School of Criminal Justice and the School of Education.
Methods – A survey was designed to measure the value of online and print serials for key faculty activities: research, publishing, course preparation and development, service, and personal interests. Measures included: recentness of use, the extent to which library journals supported work in the key activities (minor, moderate, or major), requirement of students to use online or print journals in their courses, cancellations of personal journal subscriptions in favor of library subscriptions, and travel to other libraries to use library journals.
Main Results – Twenty-seven faculty responded to the survey (22%). Two of the respondents (7%) had never used the library journals, though the majority (93%) had. Of those who used library journals, the most recent use was of online over print publications.
For each key activity, 40%-87% of the respondents reported they had never used print journals, and those who did use print reported that it supported their work only to a minor extent, primarily in the area of research. Respondents noted they used online journals most frequently for research (92%), publishing (83%), and course preparation and development (76%). Service is the least supported by journal use in either print or online, with 87% of the respondents never using print and 50% never using online journals for service.
The respondents who taught undergraduates required the use of online journals over print journals at a ratio of 3:1 for assigned readings, course activities, and writing assignments. The ratio increased to a range of 4.5:1 to 8.5:1 across activities for graduate students. Respondents indicated that print (22%) and online journals (72%) had the highest use in assigned readings. The majority of respondents required graduate students to use online journals in all activities and less than a quarter required the use of print.
Twenty respondents (80%) had not dropped personal subscriptions, but among those who did, print subscriptions were more likely to be dropped than online. If institutional access were available, 55% indicated that they would drop a personal subscription for online access, and only 27% indicated they would cancel personal subscriptions for print access. Those who did drop subscriptions cited cost, storage space, and ease of access to library journals as their motivation. Faculty comments praised the serials holdings, especially the holdings of back issues.
Finally, the majority of respondents (74%) reported not having traveled to another library for journal access, but those who did, accessed materials for research, class preparation, and publishing. Many of those who went to other libraries did so because they were closer to their residence or they needed to access original manuscripts.
Conclusion – Participants used journal subscriptions for all of the key activities surveyed, with research and publishing the top reasons for use and service the lowest. Both undergraduate and graduate students were required to use both print and online journals, with graduate student use being greater for online access. Faculty acknowledged their use of print and online journals for key activities to a major extent, with a strong preference for online journals
