Challenges of evolving health information ecosystem addressed at WCM-Q symposium
The fourth Health Sciences Library Symposium featured contributions by 17 expert speakers from institutions all over the world.
Healthcare information experts from all over the world convened to discuss the rapidly changing information ecosystem at an online symposium offered by the Health Sciences Library of Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q).
The fourth Health Sciences Library Symposium, which had the theme ‘Navigating Health Information: Adapting to a Rapidly Changing Ecosystem,’ addressed the challenges posed by technological developments that enable contributors to publish vast amounts of information at the touch of a button.
In such an environment, medical students and healthcare providers need to be equipped with the appropriate skills to assess the quality of health information and navigate the ever-changing informational ecosystem, explained Ms. Jamie Gray, associate librarian and director of the Health Sciences Library at WCM-Q.
“The Health Sciences Library developed the symposium because, from both a student and clinical perspective, being able to access good-quality, reliable and accurate information is a foundational element of their evidence-based practice, upon which almost everything they do is built,” she said.
“The symposium brings together interprofessional experts in health sciences information to explore emerging challenges in the field and to discuss the most effective ways to equip medical students and providers with the skills to both assess and navigate an informational ecosystem which is constantly changing, becoming more crowded and complex, and where it is increasingly difficult to distinguish good-quality resources from poor-quality ones.”
Ms. Gray added that the symposium also addressed the challenges posed to the health literacy of patients by the changing health information ecosystem, and strategies to mitigate this issue.
The one-day symposium, which drew more than 100 participants, featured 17 expert speakers from institutions all over the world, including WCM-Q, Qatar University, Northwestern University in Qatar, Hamad Medical Corporation, the University of Calgary in Qatar, Newcastle University in the UK, Yale University in the US, and the University of Malta.
The opening keynote was given by Dr. Beth St. Jean, associate professor at the University of Maryland College of Information in College Park, Maryland, who spoke about the role of public libraries in disseminating information during the 1918 influenza and the COVID-19 pandemics. The closing keynote was presented by Dr. Maya Adam, director of health media innovation and a clinical associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Stanford School of Medicine, who discussed the promise of digital storytelling for enhancing global health communication.
Other topics covered in the symposium’s many presentations and lightning talks included the role of data-based journalism during the COVID-19 pandemic, opportunities in asynchronous learning, ethical challenges in the health information sphere, AI literacy in academic libraries, the use of digital tools to enhance health literacy, and how to adapt educational content to meet different healthcare needs, among many others.