Crossing Over: Health Sciences Librarians Contributing and Collaborating on Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Implementation

Abstract

Getting the right internal and best external information to the points of need is critical in the health system/hospital enterprise. This information access can be enabled by the skills and experiences of catalogers for internally generated information and by reference librarians for integrating the best external information into the electronic medical record (EMR) system. Through the author's experiences of inventorying and classifying clinical documents and physician order sets, a case is presented for health sciences librarians to cultivate deeper connections with clinical colleagues and health system/hospital enterprises. A literature review and informal listserv survey of EMR activities and interest among health sciences librarians indicate that contributions and collaboration are emerging and a significant impact of 53% of survey responders favored or participated in EMR development.

KEYWORDS:

• catalogers
• clinical documentation
• computerized medical record systems
• electronic health record
• electronic medical record
• health sciences librarians
• hospital documentation
• information access
• information services librarians
• medical librarians
• physician order sets
• reference librarians
• roles

Notes

Comments and suggestions should be sent to the Column Editors: Soraya Assar (E-mail: [email protected]), Nicole Mitchell (E-mail: [email protected]), Barbara Platts (E-mail: [email protected]), or Steven Van Houten (E-mail: [email protected]).