Finding and collecting high quality information

A synthesis of my MHST601 health information audit and curation plan

Learning to seek out high quality health information is a skill that I first learned as an undergraduate student, and it is a skill that has served me well both personally and professionally. I belong to a team of health educators that strive to practice evidence-based care, ensuring all information and recommendations we offer are based on the highest quality evidence available (Bhargava & Bhargava, 2007). We also teach our clients how to seek out and evaluate health information online so they can make evidence-informed decisions for themselves.

To me, high quality information is current, based on the highest quality scientific evidence available, and accepted as evidence by the institutions and organizations to which I belong. To further examine the scientific evidence quality rating scale I use, I encourage you to review the article What is Grade? (Siemieniuk & Guyatt, 2019). It is important to acknowledge that my definition of evidence comes from a scientific worldview. There are many ways of collecting evidence. Lived experience, vicarious experience through the oral transfer of knowledge, expert opinion, and measurable observation through the scientific method are all examples of ways one can gather evidence. As a health professional, I first look to evidence gathered through peer-reviewed research conducted using an explicit, repeatable method. I recognize this is not always available and that there are times when I may have to make a decision based on other forms of evidence, such as a series of observations or expert opinion. However, when there are multiple sources of evidence available, the first source I use is evidence gathered through a rigorous scientific method. 

As a health professional that works directly with clients that have different values and perspectives, I find it very important to explain my definition of evidence and reasons for using this form of evidence. It is also important to me to acknowledge the many ways of gathering evidence and to honour the sources of evidence used by each client to make an evidence-informed decision.  I believe this acknowledgement allows for open, honest, and respectful conversation and is an important piece of client-centered care.  Our clients are encouraged to seek out information and to critically evaluate it to make decisions that are right for them. To help clients find high quality information online, as we define it, my team offers our clients several questions to ask when evaluating information. The questions are:

What is the source of this information? Is it reliable? Is it biased? 

Is it good evidence-based information?

Is the information current?

How will I feel if I follow this advice? Will it work for me and my family?

These questions require further definition of the terms reliable, biased, and good. They are explained in more detail on our website (Alberta Health Services, 2018). It is important to note that the questions we encourage our clients to ask are essentially the same that we ask ourselves when evaluating health information in a professional capacity. 

Finding high quality information is one of the most important skills I have learned as a health promotion professional.  Learning how to curate this information is equally important. A health information curation plan is vital to the processes of academic writing, policy decision making, and health communication. Until two weeks ago, my system for collecting health information consisted of electronic folders and Microsoft Word documents. This system had met my needs for the most part, but I often found myself rereading articles for multiple projects. Looking back, I realize this was an inefficient process.

Through discussion with colleagues and my professor in MHST601, I have discovered many digital curation tools that can help save me time when reviewing, annotating, and referencing scientific literature and interesting articles. I have included a list of my favourite curation tools on my Resources page for your review. Two tools I would like to describe in more detail are Pocket and Mendeley. 

For public-interest articles and information related to my profession, I now use Pocket to collect items for future reference. Pocket is a highly visual curation tool, similar to platforms such as Pinterest. Pocket can work with most browsers to easily collect web articles, images, and objects and save them in one space.  Because Pocket is an online platform, information can be accessed from any device at any time. Finally, users can recommend items to be viewed by others. I have started collecting articles related to leadership, maternity care, and health equity. If these topics interest you, view my recommendations. 

When it comes to academic writing, I have decided to use Mendeley for curation of scientific literature. I love that citations and reference lists become easy to create using the automatic features of Mendeley and the Microsoft Word plugin. I also love that the desktop and web versions of Mendeley are synced. I can work on projects at home, at the office, and at Starbucks and know that all my work is easily accessible from any location.  I really appreciate the fact that notes I take on an article stay with the article in Mendeley. Now I can refer to the notes I’ve made on a single article for multiple projects quickly and easily. Mendeley also allows users to create private working groups to share articles with each other.

I feel confident in my ability to seek out, evaluate, and curate health information. It is a process that I find very rewarding. I am excited to use new curation tools and citation management software. I believe these tools will help me save time and make sharing resources even easier. I encourage you to consider the use of digital curation tools as well.

References

Alberta Health Services. (2018). Additional Reading and Resources. Online Birth and Babies. Retreived from http://www.birthandbabies.com/prenatal-topics-online/

Bhargava, K., & Bhargava, D. (2007). Evidence Based Health Care: A scientific approach to health care. Sultan Qaboos University medical journal, 7(2), 105–107. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3074860/

Siemieniuk, R., & Guyatt, G. (2019). What is Grade? EBM Toolkit. Retrieved from https://bestpractice.bmj.com/info/toolkit/learn-ebm/what-is-grade/