Using Quality Improvement Tools to Redefine a Clinical Librarianship Program: A Case Study

ABSTRACT

University of Washington (UW) Medicine is a large hospital system in Seattle, Washington. Historically, the UW Health Sciences Library (HSL) has had one clinical librarian to support the organization. However, after the clinical librarian retired in 2015, 1.5 FTE clinical librarians were hired to support UW Medicine. This article details process improvement strategies being implemented at UWHSL to align and modernize the library’s clinical librarianship program given the significant changes occurring in healthcare. This case study will examine the use of qualitative research techniques for gathering information and the use of Value Engineering tools to analyze results.

KEYWORDS:

• Clinical librarianship
• hospitals
• medical libraries
• qualitative research