Hear Me Now: When Storytelling Meets a Health System Library

Background: A chance encounter at work led to an innovative and rewarding partnership between a large health system library and a storytelling program whose mission is to give patients, loved ones, and caregivers a sacred space to share their stories and make healthcare more humane.

Description: Providence System Library Services leadership collaborated with palliative care communication managers to support the mission and growth of a health system storytelling program. The program includes professionally produced podcasts, multimedia video and audio stories from patients/families/employees, and other online content. Library involvement was multifaceted including fact checking and literature searching to support the podcast; identifying opportunities for social media content; and creation of a unique metadata structure and thesaurus by our Institutional Repository staff to organize and archive multimedia “stories” making them more accessible now and in the future.

Conclusion: The storytelling initiative was a successful partnership between the Library and a division of marketing-communication. This expansion into a previously untouched area of the health system business brought an opportunity to showcase the diverse skill-set library staff and push beyond the boundaries of clinical research and education. The Library was even asked to share their own story in a podcast episode of COVID-19 unsung heroes in the health system giving greater visibility to pandemic impacts on nonclinical departments.