? ? Research shows that patient satisfaction with medical care correlates strongly with how satisfied they are with the ease of getting information from their providers regarding their medical condition. One strategy to meeting the patient's information needs is to introduce librarians trained and experienced in consumer health information services into the relationship between the patient and the provider. The librarian fills the prescription by offering information services tailored to the needs of individual patients. At Johns Hopkins, we have piloted such a tactic, and propose, in this project, to extend and to evaluate it. ? ? The research hypothesis is that provision of an IRx will improve patient satisfaction, provider knowledge and attitudes regarding patient information needs, and the efficiencies of care. The goal of this research is to evaluate IRx, to provide enough data so care organizations can decide whether to implement this in their own environment. To that end, our specific aims are: ? ? (1) To evaluate the impact of IRx on patients. We will perform a randomized clinical trial (RTC), comparing IRx with standard provision of information. The primary outcome will be patient satisfaction. ? ? (2) To evaluate the impact of IRx on providers. As part of the trial, provider perceptions and behavior will be assessed. ? ? (3) To evaluate the impact of IRx on the health-care system. As part of the trial, costs entailed and resources utilized will be assessed. ? ? (4) To evaluate how IRx generalizes across service environments. The trial will be performed in two environments: adult breast cancer and pediatric leukemia. ? ? In each RCT, patients in both intervention and control groups will receive standard clinical care in their clinic visits. Patients randomized to the intervention group will be given an information prescription and receive information services from a specially trained librarian; patients in the control groups will receive routine, current information provision.
For Aim 1, immediately after their clinic visits and two weeks later, all participants will report their satisfaction on a survey that will include measures of patient-provider communication.
For Aim 2, participating providers will be surveyed for their perceptions of information needs being met and about patient-provider interaction.
For Aim 3, costs of care and costs of providing the IRx environment will be tabulated.
For Aim 4, we will evaluate the program by comparing two clinics 1) oncology visits of newly diagnosed breast cancer, and 2) all pediatric visits of patients with leukemia. ? ? By providing an evidence basis for the use of this new approach for satisfying patients' information needs, this project should be of benefit to patients, providers, health-care administrators, and librarians, all of whom play an active role in any approach to information delivery. ? ? ?
| Oliver, Kathleen Burr; Lehmann, Harold P; Wolff, Antonio C et al. (2011) Evaluating information prescriptions in two clinical environments. J Med Libr Assoc 99:237-46 |
