Effective Use of Health Care Information: : A Review of Recent Research

Citation

Goodier, J. (1998), "Effective Use of Health Care Information: : A Review of Recent Research", Library Review, Vol. 47 No. 7, pp. 363-368. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1998.47.7.363.5

LCSH Medical care ‐ information services

This book is a review of research and is British Library Research and Innovation Report 48. Most of the work covered has taken place since the Cumberlege seminars which marked a turning point in the management of information in the National Health Service. There is some reference to earlier work but in the main it concentrates on the many responses to the seminars.

After a scene‐setting introduction there is a discussion of what health care information is available locally and nationally and the impact of government on health information. The author then turns his attention to the role of specialist libraries. There is a chapter on pharmaceutical information and one on three specific areas where information delivery is problematic: health promotion, care in the community and rural health. The inclusion of the library in the medical audit of health care is discussed, as is the influence of information on clinical practice. There is a chapter specifically on educating health care professionals. The need also to educate managers comes out clearly in the chapter on health management. The specific changes required in information management because of the changes in the nursing profession are dealt with separately. The book ends with chapters on North America, Europe and the future.

Availability of the right information at the right time is a theme that runs through the book. The customers covered range from patients (and not yet patients in the case of health promotion) through doctors and nurses in training to general practitioners, hospital doctors and hospital managers. As one of the sources Peter Merry quotes states “…there is scarcely a medical question that can be asked that does not have an answer in the literature”. The problem is finding that answer and delivering it. A second message that comes through is that there is a role for librarians and information specialists, but that that role is far more active than it has been in the past. One view of that role is that it is to convince users that libraries are a useful and valuable resource and to train users, but another view is to make information provision part of the care process.

A quick run round the chapters does not do justice to the amount of information in this book, or the many ideas that one might wish to follow up. Clearly almost everyone involved in health care information and libraries would benefit from reading this book. Because of the importance of health care, funds have been available to carry out the research, and because of the poor management and co‐ordination of information in the past, librarians and their managers have been prepared to take part in the research and to set up local initiatives. This is unlikely to occur in other fields and those working in areas such as the environment and manufacturing would also benefit from reading this book.