Lean Out: The Rounding Librarian. Claire Hamasu, Robert Millsap, University of Utah; Debra Simmons, Kencee Graves, University of Utah Health Care.
Objective: Hospital CEOs frequently come from the business sector. It is, therefore, useful for librarians to show their value to the institution in financial terms. The authors used the Lean process to develop a pilot to determine the financial impact of a librarian responding to patient care questions generated on clinical rounds. The hypothesis being that net costs would be lower with a librarian’s involvement.
Methods: • A librarian was added to four internal medicine round teams at an academic medical center. The librarian searched for answers to questions generated on rounds. • A survey was distributed to all healthcare provider team members. It collected data on the average time team members spent on searching for information and the use and usefulness of the librarian’s search results. • Estimated salary and benefits were used to calculate avoidance costs for physician search time. • Using two of the round questions, two scenarios were developed. The possible impact of the information provided by the librarian was determined by physician authors. This was translated into cost savings using HHS HRQ Data by the MBA author.
Results: • Calculations for cost avoidance of one FTE rounding librarian based on save 5 hours of physician and post grad search or physician or time/day = $29,000-$94,000 (approx.) net annual savings. • In each patient scenario, data indicates that savings of several thousand dollars might be realized.
Conclusions: A librarian embedded on rounds can: • Impact patient care. • Result in cost avoidance due to physician time spent on searches. • Result in cost savings in patient care.
