Building capacity among healthcare librarians to teach evidence-based practice – an evaluation

An innovative funding scheme launched by NIHR ARC West in 2016 to build capacity among healthcare librarians to teach evidence-based practice has been successful in boosting confidence, providing valuable skills and positively impacting the careers of the librarians, an evaluation by ARC West has found. The evaluation, published in the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA), also identified a need for more education in teaching skills and suggests that additional investment in this type of specialist training for healthcare librarians would be beneficial.

The role of healthcare librarians in supporting evidence-based practice has long been acknowledged. As well as expertise in searching and locating evidence, this specialist role based in healthcare system settings, demands skills in critical appraisal, including knowledge of health research methods, and a degree of competence in explaining such ideas to others. The aim of the ARC West healthcare librarians funding scheme is to support the development of teaching skills among local librarians, both to benefit library services and increase local capacity in critical appraisal training.

Between 2016 and 2018, the scheme supported seven healthcare librarians to attend an intensive short course in Teaching Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) run yearly by the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford. The funding scheme also includes a commitment for each successful applicant to support joint events with ARC West to cascade the skills and knowledge acquired from the course to colleagues in local library services.

The evaluation aimed to understand the value of the funding scheme and the impact of the training opportunity for the librarians, to establish an evidence-base for continuing with the scheme. Data collection included group discussions and individual interviews. The analysis uncovered five themes:

1. the role of healthcare librarians in promoting evidence
2. experiences of the Teaching EBM course – gaining a new perspective, feeling valued, and being inspired
3. personal benefits from attending the course – influence on career, new skills, confidence
4. future plans for new training
5. the support of ARC West

Librarians funded by the scheme have successfully cascaded the training to their colleagues.

This positive evaluation supports the continuation of the funding scheme to further build capacity among healthcare librarians to teach evidence-based practice, and suggests that additional investment in this type of specialist training for healthcare librarians would be beneficial.

Abby Sabey, Programme Lead of ARC West’s Training and Capacity Building Team, who led the evaluation, said:

“Evidence from this evaluation will inform the development of new plans to support this group of professionals with the vital service they provide to their clinical colleagues, which contributes to the evidence-based culture of their organisations and to patient outcomes.”