The role of librarians in healthcare interprofessional collaboration: a literature review

Abstract

Background: As the delivery of healthcare evolves to become more interconnected, coordinating care between nurses, pharmacists, physicians, social workers as well as medical librarians and other disciplines has become increasingly important. Librarians are more deeply involved in ward rounds routine exercise, provision of instruction in health information literacy, medical informatics, evidence-based research skills, and problem-based learning. This article introduces key concepts relating to the interprofessional collaborative teamwork among health professionals and its impact on medical librarians.

Methods: Data for this paper was collected through the literature review and it was done using various online searching tools with relevant information including, PubMed, LibHub, Science Direct and Google Scholar.

Results: The results show that the emerging and changed roles have resulted in a shift in professional identity with the health sciences librarians moving toward a collaborative, consultative practice that is more closely aligned to user’s needs and approaching patient care from a team-based perspective.

Conclusion and Recommendation: The paper concludes among others that there is a need for library science educators and health sciences librarians to seek and identify skills needed for evolving library practice and formal documentation of new roles within clinical settings. It is recommended that they should add technology, collaborative, consultative, instructional design, and teaching skills to their professional toolbox.