Abstract
The following standards, with supporting evidence, are intended to serve as a guide to structuring minimum library services within health and social services institutions across all Canadian provinces and territories. The Standards are not intended to be aspirational. The aim of the Task Force was to ensure that the Standards update would not be so removed from the current realities and landscape that they became unattainable to many libraries. For this reason, some Standards outline requirements that are essential to the minimum function of the library, and other Standards provide recommendations only. The intended use of the Standards is to set a baseline for the provision of essential library services and resources and aid in advocating for adequate resources. It is important to note, however, that the Task Force does not intend for the Standards to prevent libraries from reaching a more advanced level of service, and we hope that in their current form they will not be a hindrance to excellence or innovation. Once published, the version of the Standards made freely available on the Canada Health Libraries Association website [1] shall henceforth and always be considered the most recent and active version of the Standards and is the version that should be used to inform practice. The Standards Standing Committee will institute a regular review and updating schedule, ensuring the currency of the Standards.
Highlights
Informing practice with current best evidence correlates with improved patient outcomes and satisfaction, as well as quality improvement [310]
While it is difficult to measure direct impact on patient outcomes, and larger randomized studies are needed, a growing body of evidence shows that literature searches conducted by health information professionals can serve to improve clinical decision-making [11, 12], and clinicians report that information received by librarians or found using resources provided by the library has helped prevent adverse events, reduce unnecessary treatments or referrals [3, 1215], inform or confirm decisions about treatment and patient management [3, 16, 17], and reduce length of stay [9, 12, 18]
Information services provided by health information professionals have been shown to help mitigate barriers to use of evidence, such as lack of time and inadequate search skills, by providing mediated information retrieval, support for evidence-based practice (EBP) and information literacy (IL) [7, 8, 20,21,22,23]
Summary
Informing practice with current best evidence correlates with improved patient outcomes and satisfaction, as well as quality improvement [310]. Information services provided by health information professionals have been shown to help mitigate barriers to use of evidence, such as lack of time and inadequate search skills, by providing mediated information retrieval, support for evidence-based practice (EBP) and information literacy (IL) [7, 8, 20,21,22,23]. This can take the form of services or Continuing Education (CE) instruction. Subscription costs increase yearly, sometimes exponentially, and the library budget allocation must adjust in order to accommodate these increases
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