Analyzing Point of Care Tools Through Faculty, Resident, and Stakeholder Buy-In: A Cautionary Tale

Objectives: Costs for Preston Medical Library’s primary point of care clinical tool have increased to half of the acquisitions budget, while user affiliation data has not been provided to facilitate cost-sharing. In response, user preferences for point-of-care clinical tools were analyzed to determine a viable, less expensive alternative to the current subscription.

Methods: At the Dean’s direction, a working group of library staff, resident physicians, and medical faculty members was appointed, and data was gathered through individual user surveys of clinical support tools. Three point of care tool options were considered. Additionally, feedback was sought from other AAHSL institutions regarding subscriptions to the tool in question and funding schemes. The Dean and the clinicians evaluated the tools using a series of questions individually chosen as typical to their disciplines. The Dean communicated to GSM and UTMC that cost increases for the product had become prohibitive, requiring that alternatives be considered.

Results: Survey responses revealed a strong preference for the incumbent tool, rating PubMed as the second preferred source, but not substitutable. Working group members preferred the current product at point of care, judging one tool adequate but less user friendly and more time consuming. Responses from hospital clinical staff to the hospital leadership resulted in a cost sharing agreement where the hospital will pay half of the cost of the contract renewal.

Conclusions: Access to the preferred point of care tool will continue with plans to enhance data gathering to ascertain use patterns by academic and hospital users, as desired by their leadership. The library and the other stakeholders will monitor development of the second choice product and costs for future decision making.