Evaluation of Selected Electronic Resources - Assignment Example

? Evaluation Report of Electronic Resources for National Health Services (NHS), UK Thank you for the work that you have done; however there is some parts still needs further amendment. Please read the highlighted section and fix it as soon as possible and consider the following: Some of your selected users and their needs are not related to the needs for databases such as (patients concerned about the confidentiality and Pharmacists scan the information in the bar code) For CINAHL database I think you mixed up MeSH with CINAHL Regarding your references I will upload files that have information about the selected databases. Please refer to them. I have to submit the report with in less than 10 hours. thanks Name Institution Course Date Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Information Needs of the National Health Services (NHS) 4 Medline 7 Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) 8 PsycINFO 11 Conclusion 11 Executive Summary The National Health Service (NHS), established in 1948, provides healthcare to all legal residents in the UK. Some of the services provided by NHS include dentistry, in-patient care, ophthalmology, primary care, and long-term healthcare. Some of the stakeholders of NHS include patients, clinicians, pharmacists, general practitioners and administrators/management. The NHS fraternity needs to access different kinds of information fast. This information needs to be up-to-date as it may be relied on to solve various issues for the different stakeholders. There are several databases available in the market that may be of importance to NHS. The databases that NHS should highly prioritise include Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE, and PsycINFO. Those that the organization may give least priority include PubMed, ScienceDirect, AMED, MeSH, and British Nursing Index Information Needs of the National Health Services (NHS) The UK National Health Service (NHS) was formed in July 5, 1948 to provide comprehensive medical treatment to the British citizens free of charge. More than seven decades since its establishment, the organization has a workforce of more than one million people and is funded by the government of UK, with a budget of close to ?42 billion annually. This put it far above many healthcare institutions across the globe. The UK government recently funded the organization with close to ?140 million. From this amount, ?43 million has been directed toward investment in strategic projects. The National Health Service provides healthcare to all legal residents in the UK. This means that when an individual from a different part of the UK falls ill while travelling in England, they are free to enjoy the services provided by NHS. Some of the services provided by NHS include dentistry, in-patient care, ophthalmology, primary care, and long-term healthcare. NHS has many clients that need fast and accurate and reliable information. First in this category are the patients who rely very much on the information provided by the management. This is because it is through the information that they can make an informed choice on how they want to be treated. Clinicians and pharmacists are other major clients who need timely and accurate information to enable them perform their work more efficiently. Clinicians are, for instance, concerned about information pertaining to patients with long-term conditions (Raleigh 2010). Managers of the institution need to learn and adopt new or more effective methods of managing heath care funding and services. This is one of the information requirements that NHS has to solve to make work easy. NHS recognizes the fact that that general practitioners are expected to address public health issues, health inequalities, and social care in unity with the local authorities. However, this requires fast, timely and reliable information from NHS (NHS 2011, p.2-4). NHS also reveals that its other information requirement concerns the management of clinical information and the improvement of quality of healthcare for patients. Electronic Resources for meeting information needs Based on the information needs of NHS, it is imperative that the organization identify suitable electronic resources capable of meeting its informational needs. The following are some of the electronic resources that NHS should consider in addressing its informational needs: Pubmed, ScienceDirect, CINAHL, Medline, MeSH, PsycINFO, EMBASE, AMED and the British Nursing Index among others. However, based on the urgency of the informational needs of NHS and financial constraints associated with putting up of this electronic resource products, priority will be given in the following order: High Priority: Medline CINAHL EMBASE PsycINFO, Low Priority: PubMed: PubMed is an free online resource that may be used to access abstracts and references related to biomedical and life sciences. First used in 1996, the resource may be used in accessing the Medline database. ScienceDirect: ScienceDirect is a collection of scientific research publications from across the world. The resource boasts of having more than 10 million articles drawn from journals. The resource also has more than six thousand reference sources and books. The database contains literary materials related to the social sciences, humanities, life sciences and physical sciences. AMED: The Allied and Complementary Medicine Database contains references mainly from Medline. Its resources are related to palliative care, complementary medicine and other fields related to medicine. Some of the subjects covered in this regard include podiatry, occupational therapy and physiotherapy. The resource mainly targets students and academic staff. MeSH : The Medical Subject Headings database is U.S National Library of Medicine thesauruses. It provides the users with broad, narrow and related terms. This can help the organization to find all the medical terms such as diseases. British Nursing Index: The British Nursing Index is a database that contains resources related to nursing and midwifery. The articles available in the database are mainly drawn from 240 journals published in the United Kingdom. The database is compiled by professionals who understand the UK healthcare sector and environment. Medline Medline database is produced by the National Library of Medicines (NAL). Arguably, it is the most widely used information retrieval database in health and biomedicine. This is because it provides references to research papers from several international journals. The resource also provides extensive subject coverage focusing mainly on biomedical research and medicine as well as dentistry, microbiology, pharmacology, health care delivery, psychology, psychiatry among other important topic related to the field of medicine. In this regard, this electronic resource will be suitable for NHS since through the resource, it will be able to conduct research on biomedical and medicine, which has been a problem for the organization in the last decade. Therefore, since NHS is a big organization being funded by the government of UK, it will be imperative that it invests in this important resource as it will help improve quality of service delivery by addressing the informational needs of the organization (King’s College London 2006). Based on the nature of the organization, it would also be prudent for the management to consider deploying the Ovid interface since it will give many institutions that fall under NHS the opportunity to get access to the electronic resource with ease. Since technology has advanced in every part of the work, it will also be good if the organization consider providing this data base on top of every employee’s desk to improve efficiency and research as and when needed (Willcocks 1996, p.12-14). Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) This is another important literature resource in the field of nursing and allied health. This electronic resource provides research materials and articles from more than 3000 current international journals (Ebscohost 2012). The main areas covered by the resource include primary journals from allied discipline such as nursing consumer health, complementary medicine, and health sciences librarianship, biomedicine and roughly 17 allied health disciplines (Raleigh 2010; (Ebscohost 2012). CINAHL with full text database is published by EBSCO. It is a great search tool that offers full text from more than 610 journals. The database offers access to nursing dissertations, standards of practice and e-books. In addition to these, the database has educational software, book chapters and audio-visual materials. More like MeSH, CINAHL operates based on standard vocabulary for drug, disease, physiological concepts and anatomy. The search terms are arranged hierarchically as links so as to allow specificity from the most general to the most precise. One can also search resources based on dates, authors’ names, title, or subject. It is apparent that this electronic resource will help address several informational needs of NHS and as such should be given priority when making investment decision. For instance, from the resource, the GP consortia of the NHS will be able to address its informational needs pertaining to their patients and their population, for the body to be able to inform commissioning and improvement in population health. From the resource, clinicians will also be able to obtain information regarding patients with long-term conditions, which has been a major problem in the past. Moreover, NHS staff will also be able to obtain information regarding occupational therapy, health education, nutrition and laboratory with ease, which in turn will help in improving service delivery to stakeholder of the organization and in the UK at large (NHS 2011, p.2-5). The interface appropriate for use here is the Ebsco, which is commonly used and Google scholar. It is worth noting that searching in CINAHL is relatively simple which means that potential users will not need to be trained in order to effectively use the resource. EMBASE is another electronic literature resource focusing on the field of biomedicine and drug research, which is very suitable for resolving the informational needs of NHS. It is mainly used as a complement to Medline as it provides references from more than 4,000 international journals with main focus on European literature. The resource comprehensively covers pharmacology, pharmacy, public and environmental health, toxicology, forensic science and psychiatry. The resource is particularly valuable for drug-related searches which will be very helpful to clinicians and pharmacists at NHS. Once the pertinent information on particular drugs has been obtained by the clinicians and pharmacists, this would in turn see an improvement in service delivery and patient satisfaction which the NHS fraternity as well as the GP consortia is concerned about (King’s College London 2006). One good thing about EMBASE is that it is available through a variety of interfaces such as OvidSP, Scirus and Google scholar. The updates on these interfaces are done on a monthly basis making it appropriate for NHS. The other advantage why NHS should consider installing this valuable literature resource is due to the fact that it is easy to use and therefore does not require a lot of training as is the case with Medline and CINAHL (Earl1989, p.31-36). PsycINFO PsycINFO is an electronic database resource with emphasis on the field of psychology. This database provides references from more than 1,900 journals according to King’s College London (2006). Apart from psychology, it also covers multidisciplinary areas such as education, psychiatry, nursing, medicine, law and social work. It contains information dating back to 1887. It is evident that most of the information contained in this database is those that NHS has been yarning for, for many years now. For instance, NHS had stated that some of its staff members such as those dealing with psychology have not been able to get relevant information that may help them improve the quality of service delivery. Nurses drawn from the organization have also been finding it difficult obtaining first hand information regarding patients with long-term conditions. This implies that by installing this database, most of the informational needs of NHS would ultimately be resolved since they will be having a resource within their vicinity where they can easily obtain information. Conclusion The success of any organization is pegged on the ability of its managers to understand the information needs of their client and the identification of information resources or products, which can satisfy these needs (Earl 1989, p.66-78). This is particularly important for information-savvy organizations. Healthcare organizations particularly require fast and accurate information to enable it work effectively and meet the desires of the patients and the hospital management. Data has become an essential tool used for matching healthcare provision to the needs of the community. National Health Services (NHS) needs to integrate electronic resources as a means toward achieving its mission and vision. NHS is an organization based in the United Kingdom. The organization offers a variety of healthcare services to legal residents of England. With the services of NHS in place, UK citizens have access to free healthcare. The organization, established in 1948 is funded by the government and has several stakeholders including medical staff, nurses, pharmacists, patients, hospital administers, just to mention a few. Each of these stakeholders needs to access different information relating to their specific needs. In this respect, the organization needs to go the extra mile and establish measures that will effectively cater for these needs. While physical libraries are known to be valuable, their limitations are countless. They are prone to overcrowding and are ineffective in terms of information sharing especially when certain limited resources are highly on demand. Online resources overcome these limitations and have an added advantage in terms of cost. The NHS needs to integrate electronic resources into its system with the aim of improving efficiency in the provision of care to patients. Apart from the already existing electronic resources, it is still necessary that the organization consider putting in place other electronic resources to help solve the problem of information deficit that still exists in the organization From the analysis and evaluation of the information needs of NHS, it is evident that information is destined to have a fundamental role in the effective running of the organization. This implies that the organization must strive to improve its information system so as to be able to meet the needs of its stakeholders. This can mainly be achieved by first establishing the information requirements of the organization and the stakeholders to ensure that the best electronic resource is bought to help solve the issue. This indeed, would help spur growth and efficiency in information dissemination throughout the organization. Recommendations Considering the information needs of various stakeholders of NHS, it is important that the organization embrace technology by using modern and up-to-date databases. The organization should prioritize the installation of different electronic resources. This will see the organization meet all the information needs of all its clients in the near future. With these resources in place, the organization will be able to obtain first hand information thereby improving service delivery to its stakeholders. The resources that the organization should prioritize highly include Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE, and PsycINFO. These resources should be given high priority considering the high amount of information they have to offer compared to their counterparts. Furthermore, the resources are simpler to use meaning that even those who have little knowledge of computers and networks can use them with relative ease. In addition, the resources are cost effective and offer up-to date information on various subjects and topics. This further implies that the organization will not have to incur extra costs in training the stakeholders. References Earl, M.J. 1989, Management strategies for information technology. Prentice Hall, Hemel Hempstead. Eason, K. 1988, Information technology and organizational change, Taylor & Francis, London. Ebscohost 2012, The CINAHL Database http://www.ebscohost.com/biomedical-libraries/the-cinahl-database [Accessed 13 August, 2012] Evans, D. 1998, Where next for the hospital clinical claims manager?, Clinical Risk, 4: 66-68. Ewushi-Mensah K., & Przasnyski, Z. 1994, Factors contributing to abandonment of information development projects, Journal of Information Technology. 9: 185-201. Johnson C.W. 1998, representing the impact of time on human error and systems, interacting with computers. 11: 53-86. Keen P. 1991, shaping the future, Harvard Business Press, Boston. King’s College London (2006). Electronic resources for NHS. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/library/nhs/faqs.aspx [Accessed 13 August, 2012] Leicestershire Health Information Services 2011, IT in the NHS: Clinical information systems. http://www.leics-his.nhs.uk/blog/post/2011/10/13/IT-in-the-NHS-clinical-information-systems.aspx [Accessed 13 August, 2012] NHS 2011, Information needs for GP Consortia, University of Nottingham, UK. 1: 2-5. Raleigh, V. 2010, what role for information in the new NHS? http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/what_role_for.html[Accessed 13 August, 2012] Reeve, J., & Sweidan, M. 2011, setting a standard for electronic prescribing systems. http://www.australianprescriber.com/magazine/34/1/2/4/ [Accessed 13 August, 2012] Willcocks L. 1996, Investing in information systems: Evaluation and Management, Chapman and Hall, London. Read More