Integrating Medical Librarians into the Care Delivery Team to Support Patient Education

The healthcare landscape is rapidly evolving, and healthcare professionals are challenged to meet relevant patient education (PE) needs. There are opportunities to improve PE and outcomes by incorporating medical librarians into the interdisciplinary care delivery team. Local Problem: Patients often have difficulty understanding and remembering the health information they receive from their providers. This affects their ability to manage their own health and make informed decisions. PE is a key strategy to improve patients' health literacy and outcomes. However, medical librarians, who are experts in finding and evaluating health information, are rarely involved in the interdisciplinary teams that deliver PE. Methods: The Institute of Health Improvement (IHI) framework and Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle tool were selected as the framework for this quality improvement (QI) project to design, implement, and assess a process to incorporate medical librarians into the PE process with the care delivery team. Interventions: A medical librarian PE curation request process was designed and implemented to the participating group through their education teams and staff huddles. A participant job aid was shared in huddles, posted in Teams chats, emailed, and posted in work areas. The process was supported and monitored virtually during the project period. Results: Medical librarians received three requests, covering four different topics, via the PE curation process. Post-implementation participant survey data revealed that 8% (1 out of 12) of respondents utilized the new process for requesting PE materials from medical librarians. This respondent reported that the process was extremely easy to use, provided materials promptly, and exceeded expectations regarding helpfulness and informativeness for the patient. However, the remaining 91% (11 out of 12) of respondents did not use the new process, with the majority unaware of its existence. Barriers to using the new process included not being integrated into their workflow, lack of clarity on the service, not needing materials from medical librarians, or being in a care unit with a short length of stay. Conclusion: The proposed PE request process through medical librarians was underutilized. Key recommendations to enhance the service's effectiveness from the participants include incorporating the PE service request process into the EHR's current workflow, training the care delivery team members responsible for PE, clarifying the role of the librarian in supporting PE, and enhancing communication.