Publication Date

2017

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Children's Mercy is an independent, non-profit, 367-bed pediatric health system with multiple clinic locations and a strong focus on research. It offers a pediatric residency program and over 37 subspecialty fellowship programs.

New initiatives go through many steps from conception to implementation. The focus of this case study is to describe how gathering feedback from stakeholders during proposal development provided valuable insight, secured stakeholder collateral to support requests for administrative approval and funding, and marked the beginning of new productive institution-wide partnerships.

PROJECT STAGES:
Identify Needs
Identify Stakeholders
Evaluate Software
Conduct Focus Groups
Develop Fair Market Analysis/Executive Summary
Convene Task Forces for Implementation

GATHERING FEEDBACK: Gathering feedback is an important part of project development. Surveys can be a convenient and effective option, but they risk low response rates with stilted, fill-in-the-blank answers. Candid feedback was imperative for this initiative to ensure that all critical factors were being considered.

CONCLUSIONS: Using focus groups proved effectual in improving the project design. Feedback provided the opportunity to refine the proposal and highlighted issues that had not been sufficiently investigated such as interoperability with existing systems. It also revealed interest in additional use cases, such as the ability to host educational materials. Furthermore, the interactions resulted in stakeholders willing to advocate for the project and to participate in its development and implementation and better prepared Library Services to address administrative concerns. These newly built partnerships will allow future projects and service improvements to build off this project's success.

MeSH Keywords

Focus Groups; Library Services; Hospitals, Pediatric; Planning Techniques

Disciplines

Health and Medical Administration | Library and Information Science

Notes

This poster was presented at the 2017 annual meeting of the Midcontinental Chapter of the Medical Library Association in Columbia MO October 9-11.

Focus Groups as a Method to Build Library Services and Partnerships Across the Institution

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