Abstract
Objectives:Access to high-quality information improves the quality of patient care, but lack of time and sufficient skills in information seeking can prevent access to information by clinicians. To solve this problem, clinical informationists can provide high-quality, filtered information for clinical team members. This study identified the core competencies that clinical informationists need to effectively fulfill their roles on clinical teams.Methods:Participants were selected purposefully from clinicians and medical librarians. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.Results:The authors identified six competencies—communication, research, education and training, domain knowledge, information services, and technology—which together were used to develop a “CREDIT” model of core competencies for clinical informationists.Conclusions:The CREDIT model can be used as criteria for evaluating the performance of clinical informationists as well as for developing and assessing clinical informationist educational programs and curriculums.
Highlights
Access to high-quality information by clinical team members is critical for the diagnosis and treatment of patients
One way to overcome these barriers is to use clinical informationists (CIs), who have a thorough understanding of health care, information searches, and critical appraisal and who serve as members of clinical teams [5]
We interviewed twenty-two participants, consisting of clinicians who had received CI services and medical library professionals who had provided CI services
Summary
Access to high-quality information by clinical team members is critical for the diagnosis and treatment of patients. The use of strong evidence reduces medical errors and ensures the quality of patient care [1]. Factors such as lack of time and insufficient information-seeking skills prevent access to information [2, 3]. One way to overcome these barriers is to use clinical informationists (CIs), who have a thorough understanding of health care, information searches, and critical appraisal and who serve as members of clinical teams [5]. CIs provide filtered information for physicians to improve patient care and help remove the time and expertise barriers to information seeking [6]
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