Premium
Evaluation of outreach services for primary care and mental health; assessing the impact
Author(s) -
Robinson Lyn,
Bawden David
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
health information and libraries journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.779
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1471-1842
pISSN - 1471-1834
DOI - 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2007.00745.x
Subject(s) - outreach , mental health , service (business) , work (physics) , medical education , nursing , medicine , business , political science , psychiatry , marketing , engineering , mechanical engineering , law
Objectives: This paper reports an evaluation, carried out for London Health Libraries, of the impact of outreach services to primary care and mental health workers in 13 different settings. The main aims of the project were to identify the impact being made by the service, and to produce best‐practice guidelines for outreach services in this kind of community setting. Methods: Analysis of documents, analysis of any evaluation already carried out, interviews with outreach librarians, survey of a representative sample of users (eight services). The services evaluated were very diverse in terms of setting, structure, functions and activities. The evaluation was therefore largely qualitative. Emphasis was placed on trying to identify critical incidents, where it could be shown unambiguously that the outreach services made a difference to practice. Findings: Service recipients felt better informed, more up to date, more aware of resources, more confident and supported in their work, and saved time. Direct impacts, such as improved patient care, cost savings, etc., were more difficult to establish. Conclusions: The study identified the main areas of impact, and the main factors which affected this. Recommendations for good practice in such outreach services are made. Lessons of this evaluation for impact studies in general are presented, in particular the difficulty of assessing ‘direct’ impacts.