ConnectMidwest

Authors: Margaret (Peg) Allen, Joy Kennedy, Pamela Sherwill Navarro, Paul Blobaum.
Presenter: Paul Blobaum
Power Point of this presentation

Paul started by defining EBP and explained that EBP becomes a journey to identify, evaluate, and apply the best evidence to practice.

One of the first slides was a synopsis of medical versus nursing concerns for fractured hip (presentation slides will be available later) to illustrate that the focus of nurses is different from that of physicians with regard to EBP.

Why look at the librarian role? Barriers to research utilization (both individual and organizational) include:

• Lack of time
• Little experience
• Limited ability to understand and interpret research ...and the list goes on.

Survey objectives:

• Effect of EBP on librarians' roles
  
• Changes since 2005 survey
  
• Effect of Magnet status on EBP
  
• Explore librarians' experiences with accreditation

  Survey monkey survey via electronic lists, such as NAHRS, MEDLIB-L.

  Setting: primarily hospitals and health systems

  In 2005, 135 surveys were submitted. In 2008, 361 were submitted, but more were incomplete than 2005, probably due to the longer length of the 2008 survey.

  361 respondents answered the question about barriers to EBP. Out of these responses, 281 cited nurses' lack of time as the primary barrier to EBP. Lack of skills related to EBP was second, with 226 responses. Nurses' information literacy skills came in third as a barrier to EBP with 174 responses. Clinical attitudes and faculty attitudes rounded out the top five.

  Paul noted that being an academic librarian himself, he suspects that curriculum focus, even though it only had 41 responses, is probably the major barrier to incorporating or teaching EBP for academic librarians, but it likely came out relatively low on the survey due to the high percentage of hospital librarian respondents. Faculty are often unwilling to relinquish time to a librarian. (I tend to interpret this point as indicating a potential lack of coherence or consistency throughout the nursing curriculum with regard to incorporating EBP)..

  Regarding evidence based practice in academic settings, in 2005, there were 82 responses (this also includes community colleges and technical schools) related to EBP in curriculum, librarians' teaching role.

  The portion on EBP in hospitals/health systems included the following comments:

  "Nurses are encouraged to follow up on questions that come up in practice, look up the information in the library, and share it with other staff.

  "The hospital administration expects policies and decisions to be based on evidence and the library is often asked to provide help with this."

  Evolving Librarian Roles

  206 hospital libraries responded to the 2008 survey and generally reported increased involvement due to Magnet. Increased online resources or the need for increased online resources was also reported.

  For academic librarians, improving information literacy was the number one role.

  "Helping nurses helps the library and the hospitals efforts to recruit and retain the best nurses."

  In summary, ANCC Magnet recognition helped establish the value of evidence based nursing practice. Nursing education is increasing emphasis on EBP, but current staff and/or faculty lack the skills needed for EBP.

  191 Magnet coordinators responded to a 2007 NAHRS survey (76% of 251 ANCC Magnet hospitals
  
  Library role in the Magnet visit: 30% visited library, 23% conference presence, 13% asked nurses, 34% none.

  Conclusions:
  

  • Huge increase in librarian responses, part hospital librarians.
    
  • More librarians are working in EBNP, but many are still "missing the boat" (haven't been asked to be involved or haven't asked).
    
  • New roles for librarians are emerging (committee work, assist with scholarly publishing process, citation styles and managing bibliographies)
    
  • EBNP requires more than information literacy skills
    
  • Desire for Magnet recognition is not the only motivator in hospitals interest in EBNP
    
  • Opportunities for academic and hospital librarians to collaborate

    Peg Allen commented at the end, really making a point to emphasize the importance of collaboration, and more specifically partnership, not only in the Magnet program but in academia. As was emphasized earlier in the "What Administrators Want from Libraries" Panel; there are "cross-walks" between academia and Magnet and Peg emphasized that she has been long time proponent of these partnerships. For instance, many small hospitals partner with nursing schools.

    Peg insisted that we will require more collaboration, research-sharing, joint appointments, collection development in this climate of budget cuts. If we don't, we won't survive.

    This research has been published in JMLA, but they are also looking at publishing it in the nursing literature, in a journal such as JONA. There is a need to go outside the library literature for such a critical issue.

    Useful sites:
    http://nahrs.mlanet.org/index.html
    http://sites.google.com/site/nahrsnursingresources
    http://sites.google.com/site/nahrsnursingresources/inane (NAHRS/INANE survey of publishing opportunities in nursing journals)