Standards for Hospital Libraries 2002

The "Standards for Hospital Libraries 2002" were published in the October 2002 issue of the Journal of the Medical Library Association, and can be found at http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/picrender.fcgi?action=stream&blobtype=pdf&artid=128964. An amendment to the standards is in process, and will be submitted to the HLS for a vote at the 2004 MLA Annual Meeting.

Standards are not effective unless enforceable. Because it has proven to be very difficult to strengthen library standards through JCAHO, the HLS Standards Committee has been working for several years to foster adoption of these standards by state medical societies, which accredit continuing medical education programs. The article, "Raising the bar: the importance of hospital library standards in the continuing medical education accreditation process" Gluck JC and Hassig RA Bull Med Libr Assoc. 2001 July;89(3):272-276 details the process in Connecticut. it is available at http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/picrender.fcgi?action=stream&blobtype=pdf&artid=34560.

Letters signed by Linda Watson, then President of MLA, and Carla Funk, Executive Director, were sent to the Chair of the CME Committee of each state's medical society, and to the staff person at each concerned with CME. The packets included a copy of the standards, a copy of the "Raising the Bar" article.

Presentations were made to both the Connecticut State Medical Society (CSMS) and the New York/New Jersey Chapter of MLA.

On July 28, 2002, the CSMS became the first state medical society to formally adopt the "Standards for Hospital Libraries 2002" as part of their CME accreditation process, replacing the 1984 "Standards for Health Sciences Libraries in Hospitals" which they had previously endorsed. Details can be found in the "Raising the Bar" article, above.

The paper, “The development of 'Standards for Hospital Libraries 2002' in the US” http://www.jornadasbibliosalud.net/ponencias/conferclausura.doc which was given at the X Jornadas Nacionales de Información y Documentación en Ciencas de la Salud, in Malaga, Spain, November 2003, delves into the methods, process, and rationale for this effort.