Improving Clinicians' Skills in Accessing Public Health Information

Background: Clinicians are frequently very busy and don't have time to formulate complete explanations of their information requests. Thus, these clinicians may be left with limited resources. The requests for information from clinicians is a challenge to librarians who have an increasing need to obtain additional details from clinicians' search queries as well as providing training for the use of online website databases for clinicians requesting public health information. There is a need for clinical, medical, or health science librarians to prepare for the inclusion the Institute of Medicine's (IOM's) core functions of public health practice (assessment, assurance, and policy development) into reference services for the targeted population of clinicians with public health questions. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to present approaches by which clinicians with public health queries can use to optimally obtain reference assistance from clinical, medical, or health science librarians. Significance: The nature of public health topics can be specific; thus, clinicians with such information needs could benefit from seeking public health prepared librarians' assistance. Methods: A thorough search and review of the literature via PubMed was utilized to retrieve information related to studies on techniques in library reference for clinicians, studies on types of informational needs of public health clinicians, and articles on public health resources used by clinical, medical, or health science librarians. Depending on the nature of the public health query, optimal use of websites such as the National Center for Health Statistics and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System were carefully assessed. Results/Findings: Clinicians seeking public health information could benefit from the assistance of librarians trained for providing public health reference. To effectively assist with queries related to IOM's core functions, librarians need to actively ask key questions pertinent to a patron's query related to assessment of a given health concern in a community, assurance of a certain healthcare plan, and/or the development of a health policy as well as finding out the most workable searching format for providing information for a specific clinician's information needs. Librarians could also offer training and/or orientation to clinicians about various electronic systems, convey the value of using Really Simple Syndication, explain the options for using online communication in various formats, and introduce the importance of working with Web 2.0 technologies. Conclusion: Clinicians in need of public health information can value from assistance of librarians prepared to offer reference assistance in public health.