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The University Libraries

BUS 305 : Intro to the Business of Health Care Management

  1. Health CarePractitioner v. academic journals
  2. Developing a research strategy
  3. Where to search
  4. Focus on PubMed
  5. Focus on Web of Science
  6. Evaluating articles
  7. Beyond articles: business research
  8. Citation guides

Business Librarian: Steve Cramer
smcramer@uncg.edu
336-256-0346
AIM & Google Talk: stevebizlib

Health Sciences Librarian: Lea Leininger
laleinin@uncg.edu
(336) 256-0125
Chat with Lea

Learning goals for Sept. 15

  1. Be able to form complex searches in order to effectively and efficiently search for articles and news;
  2. Be able to select appropriate specialized databases and other research tools for your research topics;
  3. Be able to critically evaluate the quality and authority of the reseach you find.

1. Practitioner v. academic journals

 

Academic Journals
Practitioner/Trade Journals

Popular Magazines
General
appearance

Plain, sober, serious; may have graphs or charts, but few pictures; long articles with footnotes

 Glossy paper; business-to-business ads; heavily illustrated; short articles

Glossy paper; lots of colorful ads & photos, short articles
Audience

Professors, students, researchers

 Professionals in an industry

General public
Authors

Professors, researchers

 Specialized reporters

Reporters
Publishers Academic associations or commercial publishers Professional associations or commercial publishers Media conglomerates
Citations/
Footnotes?		 Yes No No
Peer-reviewed? Yes No No
Examples

Administration and Policy in Mental Health, Health Economics, JAMA

Health Business Week, Hospitals and Health Networks, Managed Healthcare Executive

 Economist, Business Week, Prevention

But how do you tell if an online article is academic or practitioner?

Five examples of online articles: academic or practitioner? (group discusson)

  1. The Massachusetts experience: can it inform the national debate?
  2. Maintaining continuity of care for nursing home residents: effect of states' Medicaid bed-hold policies and reimbursement rates
  3. Health care reform: the importance of a public option
  4. Obama's healthcare prescription: President Barack Obama is playing doctor with America's healthcare system...
  5. Care for chronic illness in Australian general practice...implications for chronic care systems reforms

 

2. Developing a research strategy

Basic techniques for article searching:

Combine keywords with "AND"
ex: "health insurance" AND cost

AND
AND

  

Search for related terms with "OR"
ex: health OR medical

OR
OR

Using parenthesis, you can use OR and AND at the same time.
ex: (health OR medical) AND insurance

Truncate words that have various endings (put a * after the word-root).
ex: econom* would include economic, economics, economy, economical,...

EbscoGroup exercise: Now turn these topics into keyword searches using Ebsco databases :

  1. How can we get rid of the nursing shortage?
  2. The effects of rising healthcare costs on state budgets.
  3. Comparing the cost of treating smoking-related diseases in relation to prevention and wellness programs

Solo exercise (handout): working on your own topic

3. Where to Search

Library Databases (online research tools we subscribe to)

Databases for newspaper articles, news wires, media transcripts

But yes, also consider:

 

4. Focus on PubMed

PubMed

What is it?

Searching PubMed:

  1. Type a topic such as universal health care united states
  2. If you see a handy result, open a browser window to Journal Finder from the library home page.
  3. Type the title (or abbreviated title) of the journal into Journal Finder to find out if we subscribe to that publication
  4. Video tutorial on searching PubMed

5. Focus on Web of Science

Web of Science

What is it?

Searching Web of Science:

  1. Type a topic or author.
  2. Look for a "Times Cited" number under the article's citation. Select the link to see who has cited that article.

Web of Science example

Exercise: analyzing citations

6. Evaluating articles

Accuracy:

Steps:
  • Make sure author provides e-mail or a contact address/phone number.
  • But some magazines usually publish articles anonymously (ex. the Economist).

Authority:

Steps:
  • Look for credentials for the author. Google him/her if necessary.
  • See if Web of Science or Google Scholar tells you how many times the academic article has been cited.

Objectivity:

Steps:
  • Try to learn why was this written and for whom.
  • Look for statistics and facts that are cited from objective sources.

Group discussion: consider these articles:

 

7. Beyond articles: business research

Industry Analyis

Market Research

Company Reports:

8. Citation guides

Steve Cramer
Business Librarian