THE THREE-PRONGED APPROACH:A FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHING INFORMATION MANAGEMENT IN THE HEALTH SCIENCESErika L. Sevetson, MS; Christopher Hooper-Lane, MA, AHIPEbling Library, University of Wisconsin – Madison

Getting Beyond UptoDate

Because of the escalating complexity of health information, students, clinicians, and practitioners are faced with information choices in their academic studies, in the office, and in the clinic. Health information is available through a multitude of sources including commercial and academic publishers, libraries, government agencies, community resources, health organizations, and the media. Increasingly, information comes to individuals in unfiltered formats, raising questions about authenticity, validity, and reliability. As a result, users of this health information have a tendency to limit their chosen sources to only a few that fall within their comfort zone.

In response to an invitation to teach a faculty development course entitled Beyond Google: Or, there must be more to life than UptoDate!, instructional librarians at the Ebling Library developed a simplified framework for understanding the structure of medical information and the types of sources available to answer specific types of questions. This model employs the traditional EBP distinction of background versus foreground and appends new categories to keep current with the literature and manage the citations retrieved.

This approach, along with the visual map used to illustrate it, has proven effective in orientations and workshops across the spectrum of health sciences.

LIFELONG LIFELONG LEARNINGLEARNING

CitationCitationManagementManagement

Keeping CurrentKeeping Current

Background Background (Reference Shelf)(Reference Shelf)

Clinicians, practitioners, and even researchers often need to get basic information on a condition, treatment, diagnostic test, etc. The overwhelming majority of questions that surface in practice are background in nature. These tools are designed to get the reader up to speed quickly on unfamil- iar topics.

UptoDate MDConsult STAT!Ref Harrison’s Merck Manual

Cur. Med. Dx and Rx MICROMEDEX NursingConsult Ferri’s Clinical AdvisorGoodman & Gilman’s

Foreground Foreground (Clinical Information or (Clinical Information or

Primary ResearchPrimary Research)

Once familiar with a condition, treatment, diagnostic test, etc., clinicians and practitioners need to be able to determine new or alternative courses of action by finding the best evidence. Public Health workers may be looking for guidelines, best practices, etc.

BMJ Clinical Evidence ACP PIER & Journal Club Essential Evidence Plus Cochrane Database PubMed CINAHL

TRIP

NACCHO Model Practices The Community Guide USPSTF Guidelines CDC Guidelines MMWR recs. SAMHSA NREPP

EndNote Connotea RefWorks CiteULike Zotero del.icio.us

The ever-increasing volume of information makes it in- creasingly difficult to keep track of new developments in research or practice without a management strategy. Surveillance tools, email alerts, and RSS feeds offer new mechanisms for keeping current.

“Evidence-based” journals ACP Journal Club bmjupdates+ OVID Alerts MyNCBI DARE

Researchers and most students need more than index cards to keep track of their research. Software programs, as well as online bookmarking and tagging services, are valuable tools.

RSS feeds: journals newspapers

databases websites blogs

“What tools do I need to have at my disposal in the clinic or office?"