Poster Board Number: 87
Title: Nurse-Library Staff Collaboration Leads to Clinical Questions Reference Service
Objective: To develop a clinical questions reference service provided by a collaboration of nursing and library staff.
Methods: Setting: The national headquarters of a large, international professional membership association. In response to the large volume of clinical inquiries being received, a dedicated email address and 866 phone number with a unique extension were created so that clinical questions could be submitted from around the world by association members, other oncology health care providers, and patients, families, and members of the public. The service was promoted in the association’s monthly news magazine, website, and Facebook and Twitter accounts. An auto-reply to email inquiries informs requestors of a response time of 2 business days; if the request is particularly complex or detailed, a notification is sent that it may take longer.
Results: The service has averaged approximately 140 questions per month. Although it is ostensibly geared toward oncology information, questions often fall outside that scope and pertain to a wide variety of topics. In some cases, the information provided leads to practice changes, as some inquiries are submitted by institutions updating their policies and procedures. Evidence-based resources and the guidelines published by the host association are used to answer the questions, excerpting relevant text that most directly addresses the inquiries.
Conclusions: The most common questions and answers were compiled into a “top 20” publication made available for sale and incorporated into a column written by the librarian in the association’s monthly news magazine. The service will be migrated to an open access portal on the association’s website, organized into topically driven sections with evidence-based summaries of information, publications, continuing nursing education programs discussing the topic in greater detail, journal club access, and video presentations.
Author: Mark Vrabel, AHIP, Information Resources Supervisor, Oncology Nursing Society, Pittsburgh, PA
