It has been suggested that relevant research evidence is not always considered by Canadian health services managers and that policy decisions made in healthcare services that have not been supported with adequate information are more likely to be faulty or delayed. There is little research literature on managers' information behaviour in general and very little that has focused on healthcare services managers' information behaviour. The aim of the research described in this presentation was to examine the information behaviours of healthcare services managers particularly in relation to information overload and information poverty.

Organizational information overload involves a widespread perception among coworkers that the information flow associated with individual work tasks is too large to manage effectively. Information poverty is a lack of essential information arising from the inability to access, interpret, apply and manage information. Some researchers have suggested information overload impairs healthcare workers' effectiveness while others have proposed that those suffering from information overload suffer the same fate as those suffering from information poverty. This presentation draws on a very small body of research on healthcare services managers' information behaviour. It reviews Chatman's theory of information poverty and the phenomenon of information overload and considers whether and to what extent information poverty and information overload are barriers to healthcare managers' effective information use. It explores differences between these as they relate to healthcare managers' use of internal information that has been generated or applied within the organization, and external information, including research based information. The presentation concludes with discussion of how health sciences librarians' might recognize and address information overload and information poverty in their organizations.

This paper presents work from PhD research in health information management being completed at University of Sheffield under supervision of Dr. Peter Bath, Centre for Health Information Management Research and Andrew Booth, School of Health and Related Research.