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ABSTRACT
Busy health-care professionals have a duty to apply the evidence base to practice and decision-making. Health-care knowledge and library specialists have the skills to provide efficient and effective evidence searches. To identify the advantages and cost benefits associated with knowledge and library specialists undertaking evidence searches on behalf of health-care professionals, evidence from a literature review was combined with impact case studies of evidence searches in NHS Knowledge and Library Services, identifying time savings and cost benefits. The cost-effectiveness ratio for knowledge specialists delivering evidence searching services was identified as 1:3.85 with the current net benefit to the NHS in England estimated at £37 million (42 million U.S. dollars). A range of additional benefits are also generated through using knowledge and library specialists. Greater investment in these specialists would ensure accelerated access to better quality evidence and maximum benefit across health-care systems.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Imrana Ghumra, Head of Knowledge Services, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust and Alison Horner Le Riche, Library and Knowledge Service Manager, Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust for their assistance in providing information and case studies for the paper.
Disclosure statement
Clare Edwards and Dominic Gilroy are employed by Health Education England, the body with responsibility for developing NHS funded Knowledge and Library Services in England.
Economics By Design was commissioned by Health Education England to review the economic benefit of NHS Knowledge and Library Services to the healthcare system.