International Clinical Librarians Conference 2023 #3

A series of insights from delegates to the International Clinical Librarian Conference 2023.

Navigating the Future

This was my second International Clinical Librarians Conference (ICLC) at Leicester. I was delighted to be awarded a bursary from Knowledge for Healthcare Learning Academy, enabling me to attend day one of ICLC 2023. I’d previously attended in 2017 and recall the event being a valuable experience for meeting information professionals and horizon scanning.

I was keen to use this opportunity to gain a clearer understanding of new initiatives and emerging technologies to help me identify how they’ll impact my role. The conference was a valuable networking opportunity to share experience and link with knowledge specialists working in similar roles. There was an upbeat atmosphere to the event which demonstrated that meeting in-person is still appreciated by everyone post pandemic.

It was also nice to catch-up with suppliers at the various stands having previously only met through Teams. The varied programme of e-posters, workshops, presentations and lightening talks provided topics for further discussion with attendees during breaks and workshops.   

Dr Michelle Maden, Lecturer in Evidence Synthesis at University of Liverpool was the keynote speaker opening ICLC 2023 with her presentation about “Librarians supporting systematic reviews”. She shared her experience and expertise on supporting systematic reviews across her career, including tips of setting out the ground rules with requesters and practical approaches on undertaking searches.

Michelle’s session was timely as there has been a noticeable increase in requests for support undertaking systematic reviews at my Trust. Her presentation was particularly helpful for highlighting factors I need to take into consideration to introduce and deliver this service successfully. 

There was a thought-provoking presentation about “Using Artificial Intelligence to share knowledge. Can the robots help?” delivered by Andy Tattersall from SCHARR. Artificial Intelligence is in the forefront of the news, so I was interested to learn about its applications in information and knowledge services.

Andy provided tips on engaging with AI applications successfully, for example using it to formulate ideas and get creative solutions. He warned that AI wants to provide an answer but shouldn’t be relied on to be right. Reviewing AI output is essential to identify errors or “hallucinations”.

Andy emphasized the key skills of knowledge specialists is posing the right prompts on AI platforms to obtain best results and appraise the findings. His presentation has inspired me to gain skills using AI tools and explore the practical applications to support our service. 

Lucy Wells from University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust spoke about “Presenting evidence in clinical meetings”. Lucy described the tailored service she delivers to clinical teams; undertaking extensive evidence searches, synthesising results, creating summaries of high impact evidence and delivering concise presentations in person or video recording.

This approach struck me as an effective way of supporting clinicians inform their decisions about safe patient care. Having worked in a clinical librarian role, I was interested in how Lucy has successfully become embedded as part of the clinical team to support their evidence-based practice, and this is a model to explore at my Trust.  

Another presentation that rang true with me was “Authorship for Clinical Librarians supporting research and best practice” delivered by Steve Glover from Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. Steve explored the rational for obtaining authorship and acknowledgement for providing evidence searches in his presentation which is a theme we’ve considered in our service.

Similarly, Matt Holland from LKS ASE in his presentation “The USER Project – Understanding the users experience of searching of English NHS healthcare repositories” was relevant as our service is about to launch West Midlands Evidence Repository (WMER). Matt highlighted the role of knowledge specialists in effectively promoting repositories. He shared findings of the USER Project, for example that researchers on ResearchGate are more likely to join NHS repositories, and the benefit of repositories for discovering unpublished material not recorded elsewhere. 

Thank you to the Knowledge for Healthcare Learning Academy for the bursary that enabled me to attend the conference. The event has given me an insight into what the future holds for clinical librarianship and ideas on how to meet the challenges.