Information needs of health care professionals in an AIDS outpatient clinic as determined by chart review

Objective: To examine the information needs of health care professionals in HIV-related clinical encounters, and to determine the suitability of existing information sources to address those needs. Setting: HIV outpatient clinic. Participants: Seven health care professionals with diverse training and patient care involvement. Methods: Based on patient charts describing 120 patient encounters, participants generated 266 clinical questions. Printed and on-line information sources were used to answer questions in two phases: using commonly available sources and using all available medical library sources. Measurements: The questions were divided into 16 categories by subject. The number of questions answered, their categories, the information source(s) providing answers, and the time required to answer questions were recorded for each phase. Results: Each participant generated an average of 3.8 clinical questions per chart. Five categories accounted for almost 75% of all questions; the treatment protocols/regimens category was most frequent (24%). A total of 245 questions (92%) were answered, requiring an average of 15 minutes per question. Most (87%) of the questions were answered via electronic sources, even though paper sources were consulted first. Conclusions: The participating professionals showed considerable information needs. A combination of on-line and paper sources was necessary to provide the answers. The study suggests that present-day information sources are not entirely satisfactory for answering clinical questions generated by examining charts of HIV-infected patients.