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P3. What have Clinical Librarians ever done for us? A case study with a Regional Burns Service

Published Date: 08th May 2019

Publication Authors: Stubbington Y, Shokrollahi K


Introduction
In August 2016 a Clinical Librarian service was established for the first time in the Trust. In November 2016 the Clinical Librarian received a request to work with the Regional Burns Service with the purpose of fulfilling two aims:

  • To increase the use of evidence based literature in their everyday practice by Burns and Plastics staff by increasing their awareness and access to the Library and Knowledge Service.
  • To increase the amount of research and publications produced by Burns and Plastics staff was also identified.


Methods
A short (30-45min) weekly MDT meeting was established and attended by Burns and Plastic consultants, junior doctors, medical students, nurses, a variety of allied health staff, psychologists as well as a psychiatry consultant and microbiology consultant. The Clinical Librarian attended these meetings, providing training on library resources, informing the team of recently published research and acting as a first point of contact for literature searches and article requests.

In order to assess the impact of this work, statistics were collected over a three year period (April to March). These three years reflect the year prior to the instigation of the Clinical Librarian Service, the year in which the service started and the first complete year with the Clinical Librarian Service in place.

Results

  • Over the course of the period studied the number of hours spent on literature searches for Burns and Plastics staff increased from 3 hours to 130.5 hours.
  • The number of documents supplied to Burns and Plastics staff increased from 65 documents to 407.
  • The number of talks and presentations given by Burns and Plastics staff at the BBA annual meeting increased from 3 to 13.
  • The number of published articles by Burns and Plastics staff increased from 12 to 21.


Conclusion
Attending a weekly 45 minute Burns MDT meeting has resulted in the Clinical Librarian achieving the agreed aims of increasing the use of evidence based literature by Burns and Plastics staff and increasing the amount of research and publications produced by Burns and Plastics staff by increasing their awareness and access to the Library and Knowledge Service.

By becoming an embedded member of the team, the Clinical Librarian Service has changed the culture of the Burns Service by ensuring that future practice will be evidence based and that staff pass on the torch by sharing their experience and research with future Burns and Plastics staff via presentations and publications.

With the number of Clinical Librarian Services increasing both in the UK and internationally other Burns and Plastics Departments may find it beneficial to investigate the options available to them for working directly with a Clinical Librarian.

 

Stubbington, Y; Shokrollahi; P (2019). P3. What have Clinical Librarians ever done for us? A case study with a Regional Burns Service. British Burn Association 2019 Annual Conference, 8-10 May, Leeds.

 

 

 

 

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