This document contains the notes and slides from a presentation given by Stephen Abram at the NAHSL conference on October 21, 2014. Some of the key topics discussed include the challenges facing health librarians from too much information, the importance of understanding user needs and personas, adapting services to new technologies like mobile apps and 3D printing, and the need for libraries to be open to change. Specific examples are given around the impact libraries can have on clinical outcomes and decision making based on a study from Rochester.

1. Oceans of Information and the drowning
health disciplines end user
Provocations:
Leadership in Transformational Times
Stephen Abram, MLS
NAHSL
Rockport, Maine
October 21, 2014

6. What’s your reason for being?

7. Librarian Magic
What are your magic tricks?

9. Think deeply about . . .
9
Your Operation’s
Scalability Your
Sustainability
The Depth of your
Relationships
How you Set Priorities:
Daily and Future

10. A Tale of Two Librarians . . .
Step’n Fetchit
Librarianship
Professional
Partner &
Colleague
It’s a Dickens of a challenge!

11. Risk Taking in Librarianship
Avoiding the triple diseases of:
1. Conflict avoidance
2. Passive resistance
3. Risk aversion

13. Are you locked into an old library mindset?

14. A Verb . . . an Experience, enlivened for an audience

15. A Noun . . . A foundation but not sufficient with professional animation

16. Smelly
Yellow
Liquid
Or
Sex
Appeal?
The Complex Value Proposition

17. Grocery Stores

18. Cookbooks, Chefs . . .

19. Cookbooks, Chefs . . .

20. Meals

22. The Library as Sandbox

23. Infographics
• The Rochester Study: Joanne Gard Marshall
• “Changes in the following specific aspects of care were reported by
the physicians: diagnosis (29%), choice of tests (51%), choice of
drugs (45%), reduced length of hospital stay (19%), and advice given
to the patient (72%). Physicians also said that the information
provided by the library contributed to their ability to avoid the
following: hospital admission (12%), patient mortality (19%),
hospital-acquired infection (8%), surgery (21%), and additional tests
or procedures (49%).”
• “The physicians rated the information provided by the library more
highly than that provided by other information sources such as
diagnostic imaging, lab tests, and discussions with colleagues.”
• “a significant impact on clinical decision making”

25. Personas

26. Medical Personas
• Doctors
• Surgeons
• Interns
• Residents
• Specializations
• Nurses
• Professors
• Allied Health Professions

27. What do they care about?
• What keeps you awake at night? Personally…
Professionally…
• If you could change one thing - and one thing
only at work – what would that be?
• What are you passionate about in medicine?
Has it changed over the years?

28. Observe our users in situ.

29. Ethnography focuses on social, work, and psychological context and motivations.

30. Observe Your Users

33. OK – Now let’s ask ourselves what
our users really, REALLY want.

34. Self-Service Web Portal

36. Context is King,
Contact is Queen.
Not Content.

37. Do we truly understand
their goals?

39. Eye Movement Changes

40. Learning Styles
• Visual/Spatial (Picture Smart)
• Verbal/Linguistic (Word Smart)
• Musical/Rhythmic (Music Smart)
• Logical/Mathematical (Number Smart)
• Bodily/Kinesthetic (Body Smart)
• Interpersonal (People Smart)
• Intrapersonal (Self Smart)
– Piaget, Bloom, Gardner, etc.

43. Diabetes Online
Yes, Stephen did just say Lizard Spit

44. What’s Your Experience Look Like?

45. What’s Your Experience Look Like?

46. What’s Your Experience Look Like?

48. Is it Frozen in Time?

49. What
does
your
survey
tell
you?

50. 95% of docs with smartphones use
medical apps

51. Ch Ch Change…
• Mobile, Tablets, phones
• Apps, HTML5,
• Streaming
• 3D imaging
• 3D printing
• Digital health records
• E-Learning
• Cloud (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS)
• Devices
• Fluid e-Books
• Enhanced content
• NextGen Search
(semantic, sentiment,
image, voice, …)

52. Danger Ahead
• Consumer versus Professional
• Current?
• SEO
• SMO
• Geo-tagging
• DRM, etc. …
• Walled Gardens
• Privacy, confidentiality, etc.
• Quality / Price conundrum

55. Prosthetics
http://gizmodo.com/5993147/how-3d-printing-gave-this-man-his-life-and-face-back

56. Bio-printing
http://on3dprinting.com/2012/07/06/infographic-go-on-print-a-liver-the-evolution-of-bio-3d-printing/

57. Medical

58. Accept that change
is an attitude

59. Being More Open to Change

60. Tell Your Story:
Until lions learn to write their own story,
the story will always be from the perspective
of the hunter not the hunted.

64. Competencies

65. Competencies

66. Focusing on Impact
• Who is in charge of medical quality? What’s your
relationship with them?
• Can you reduce the death rate?
Contraindications? Save time? Reduce negative
consequences or increase positive
consequences? Save money/time/reputation
results?
• What is your role in accreditation(s)? What’s
your impact?
• Etc.

81. Enjoy the Conference
Stephen Abram, MLS, FSLA
Consultant, Lighthouse Partners
Cel: 416-669-4855
stephen.abram@gmail.com
Stephen’s Lighthouse Blog
http://stephenslighthouse.com
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