For the past two and a half months, four of the Calder librarians have been braving early morning metro rides and 7 am traffic to visit the daily nursing "huddles" at the University of Miami Hospital. The "huddles" are the time where the night staff is leaving and the morning staff is coming in. In each unit the nurses take the time to share any updates on patients or protocol. And for the past two and a half months, they have been taking the time to listen to us share information about the kinds of resources that are available to them.
A Calder librarian was assigned to each of the 26 huddles. We visited each huddle once and demonstrated Citrix, the library home page, the nursing portal, and DynaMed. The location of the huddle depended on the unit - some of them were held in small labs, some in break rooms behind the desk, and some in the middle of all the action. The busier the area, the more challenging the environment was for teaching. In total, we spoke to more than 250 nursing staff members. We received many different kinds of questions, such as: "How do I find this article?" "Why is CINAHL so hard?" "What is the Mallory-Weiss Syndrome?" "What year was Superman created?" We tried to answer every question to the best of our ability!
We've received great feedback, including:
- “I appreciate your time and flexibility. The staff enjoyed it."
- “Thanks”
- “Thanks a lot.”
- “Thank you for the In-Service. They mentioned that it was very useful information. I would be happy to distribute the handout for you.”
- “… WE ARE HAPPY TO SEE STAFF THAT ARE EDUCATING US WITH OUR SYSTEM, ONCE AGAIN THANKS FOR YOUR TIME, EFFORT AND AVAILABILITY TO TEACH [OUR] STAFF.”
We are continuing the outreach for the next two months. We are each visiting our assigned huddles and promoting the consumer health education website MedlinePlus. Based on what we heard during the first round of huddles, the nursing staff is interested in information they can share with the patients. We look forward to continuing the adventures!