Introduction: The Clinical & Outreach Librarian service can support WMUH departments by providing evidence and information. You can invite a Librarian to join your clinical or corporate teams, at meetings, on ward rounds, at journal clubs. The Librarian can respond to questions that arise in the clinical or corporate setting by:
- Carrying out literature searches of the available evidence
- Using information retrieval and critical appraisal skills
- Contributing to service improvement, quality and productivity targets
Clinical & Outreach@Women’s Health & Maternity Unit: To meet the growing need for library services to be delivered at the point of care, we started Clinical and outreach librarians’ services as a pilot at Women’s Health & Maternity Unit at West Middlesex Hospital in May 2016. Considering the demand we have decided to continue to provide this service.
The Librarians provide the team with:
- A summary of the search results
- Abstracts of relevant articles
- Full text where appropriate
- Details of search strategies and resources
Benefits to Clinical Staff:
- Saves staff time
- Identifies the best evidence
- Provides quality-assured information at the point of need
- Bridges the literature-practice gap, overcoming barriers to getting information into practice
We have created a repository of clinical questions requested by WMUH O&G team and search results provided. Our idea is to create a resource for WMUH O&G staff to easily access their question and the search results. Please contact the library if you are interested this type of service for your department.
