Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Resources The Role of the National Library of Medicine (1997) / Chapter Skim
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4 Understanding the Information Needs of Health Professionals
4 Understanding the Information Needs of Health Professionals
Pages 69-86
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From page 69... ...
Advances in technology continue to increase the expansion of biomedical information at such a rapid rate that health professionals cannot possibly absorb and retain all of the information available. However, the development of online information resources, such as the TEHIP databases, have the potential to alleviate this problem by providing a framework for stor 69
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From page 70... ...
categorized the information needs of health professionals by the reason that health professionals begin their search for information, to: confirm or disconf~rm existing knowledge; assist in solving a new or unfamiliar health care problem; update basic knowledge on a topic through review; obtain information from another specialty when dealing with a patient or person with multiple problems; . highlight particular patient care concerns to other members of the health care team; find out about a rare or unusual patient care problem; determine whether a knowledge gap exists in the literature and whether a new research project or publication should be planned; or · assist in implementing new administrative or organizational initiatives.
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From page 71... ...
FACTORS AFFECTING INFORMATION SEEKING When health professionals make a decision on whether to pursue an information query, they must weigh and reach a compromise between a number of conflicting factors including the need for the information and the associated costs of locating the information such as the time, effort, and financial costs involved in information seeking (Connelly et al., 1990~.
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From page 72... ...
. Value = relevance + thoroughness + efficiency cost Studies on the ~nformation-seeking behaviors of health professionals have found that colleagues and reference books are frequently the information resources that health professionals first turn to with an information query (Blackwelder and Dimitroff, 1996; Covell et al., 1985; Curley et al., 1990; Williamson et al., 19899.
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From page 73... ...
Time Sensitivity and Level of Detail The time sensitivity factor, or how quickly an answer is required, is closely correlated to the level of detail needed and the type of information resource consulted. Owing to time constraints, health professionals working in patient care require information resources that are readily accessible so information can be .
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From page 74... ...
Because online costs are difficult to determine ahead of time, health professionals may prefer to use CD-ROM resources, which allow for unlimited searching for fixed costs. The extent to which search costs affect searching of online databases as well as potential strategies to simplify pricing structures (thereby providing the user with cost estimates at the outset of the search)
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From page 75... ...
Health care trends such as the use of evidence-based medicine approaches that emphasize inco~porating the biomedical literature into clinical decision making may provide an impetus for increased searching of bibliographic databases. CURRENT AND POTENTIAL USERS OF THE TEHIP DATABASES The following section examines statistics on current TEHIP users and then focuses on potential users, discussing their information needs, the information sources that are currently being consulted for toxicology and environmental health information, barriers to using the TEHIP databases, and opportunities that 2A study of literature searching by physicians found that physicians deemed 58 percent of the articles retrieved relevant to their initial queries (Gorman et al., 1994~.
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From page 76... ...
Current Users Toxicology and environmental health information is used by professionals working in a number of fields, including chemical manufacturing, pha~maceutical development, transportation of hazardous materials, environmental law, public advocacy, nursing, and clinical medicine. The general public, as discussed in Chapter 1, is also concerned about the adverse health effects from chemicals and environmental exposures, such as lead, radon, pesticides, smog, dioxin, and carbon monoxide, and may request additional information from their health care professionals or seek out the information themselves.
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From page 77... ...
The committee took a broad perspective that encompasses a number of groups with interests in environmental health (Chapter 1~. The committee realizes that the health professional community does not have homogeneous information needs and that there is wide variation in access to online databases and other information resources.
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From page 79... ...
Primary care professionals frequently consult textbooks or colleagues to answer their information needs (Gorman and Helfand, 1995~. For acute care situations, primary care professionals call poison control centers for specific treatment management protocols.
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From page 80... ...
Since primary care professionals are most familiar with searching MEDLINE, any efforts toward standardizing the interfaces (i.e., making MEDLINE and TEHIP database searching comparable from the user interface) will increase the utility of the TEHIP databases to these health professionals.
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From page 81... ...
There are opportunities for NLM and the American Association of Poison Control Centers to work together on refinements to the TEHIP databases that would make these resources more useful for poison control centers and for the larger health care community. Health Science Librarians and Faculty at Health Professional Schools Information needs.
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From page 82... ...
The complexities of the user interface to the TEHIP databases may deter some faculty members from exploring the scope of the databases. Since numerous databases contain toxicology and environmental health information, faculty members and health science librarians may be unaware of or unfamiliar with the specific databases in the TEHIP complement.
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From page 83... ...
The goal of this user profile analysis would be to match, as closely as possible, the needs of health professionals with specific TEHIP databases. Upon completion of the user analysis, TEHIP program staff could not only prioritize their training and outreach efforts with an emphasis on those databases that are the most useful to health professionals but could also prioritize the resources that are devoted to He databases with the greatest utility for health professionals.
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From page 84... ...
1991. Use of clinical toxicology resources by emergency physicians and its impact on poison control centers.
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From page 85... ...
1985. Use of information resources by health professionals: A review of the literature.
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