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Archive for the ‘Outreach’ Category

Express Outreach Award Highlights: Finding Reliable Health Information Online: Trusted Sources & MedlinePlus

by Mira Geffner, Librarian
Bay Area Cancer Connections
Medical Information Services
Palo Alto, CA

Mira Geffner and AttendeeBay Area Cancer Connections offers information and support to people touched by breast and ovarian cancer. Our comprehensive lending library, educational brochures, and medical information specialist service are integral to the organization’s work – helping patients and loved ones to find accurate medical information that can guide their care.

Through the project Finding Reliable Health Information Online, funded by the NN/LM PSR Express Outreach Awards program, we sought to increase health information literacy and awareness of MedlinePlus among members of the breast and ovarian cancer communities, minority healthcare trainees, and members of minority communities. We did this through a series of health information literacy training sessions and outreach exhibits. Working collaboratively with partner organizations, we delivered an educational presentation at a public library and at a community non-profit agency that provides vocational training for healthcare workers. We also offered this session as an in-service training for Bay Area Cancer Connections Helpline volunteers, and for our clients and members of the public. Through lecture, exercises, and discussion, participants learned how to critically evaluate health information and to use MedlinePlus as their go-to site for discovering quality health information. Health information literacy and MedlinePlus awareness also became a component of our regular outreach calendar.

Linda McIntyre and attendeesIn numeric terms, we planned six outreach exhibits and completed more than 20, reaching more individuals than we had hoped. We also completed the four educational events we had proposed. The most rewarding outcomes we saw were in the organizational relationships we developed and deepened over the course of the project. Internally, this project helped to strengthen bonds between the Bay Area Cancer Connections library and our Marketing and Volunteer Resources departments, as we collaborated on outreach work. We also formed a new external partnership with the Mountain View Public Library, our organization’s first public library partnership and one on which we hope to build.

Getting to know the staff and resources at our RML was invaluable as well, and we are confident that the relationships we have developed in the course of this project will be helpful as we plan our health information literacy and outreach work for the future. Funding from this project allowed two staff members to attend a PubMed for Trainers class, which has boosted our research skills.

Although we designed this project with an understanding that MedlinePlus and health information literacy instruction are important, it was striking to see the extent of the need. Most training session participants were unfamiliar with MedlinePlus prior to the session; those who had used the site had used only a small subset of its features and were grateful to learn more. The project staff noted that it would have been beneficial to vary the pace of our educational sessions more to suit the information literacy level of our audiences. And organizationally, we believe we could have done more to promote off-site events in-house, and better clarified mutual expectations with our project partners. Our award period has ended, but our outreach and MedlinePlus promotion continue, and we are looking forward to building on this project in the future!

Farewell to Lori Tagawa

NN/LM PSR Community Outreach Coordinator Lori Tagawa has accepted a new position in the UCLA Office of Academic Services beginning April 4. Her last day in the RML will be Friday, April 1. Lori has been an employee of the UCLA Louise M. Biomedical Library for a total of 7.5 years, the last five as NN/LM PSR Community Outreach Coordinator. Lori has been a great asset to the RML, and she will be deeply missed. The good news is that she is not going far away, just to the other end of the UCLA campus! (more…)

Report on Paper Presentation at the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists Annual Conference

by Caroline Marshall
Senior Medical Librarian, Public Services
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Library
Los Angeles, CA

On March 4, 2016, I had the pleasure of co-presenting a paper at the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists (NACNS) 2016 Annual Conference in Philadelphia with my colleague, Lianna Ansryan, a clinical nurse specialist. The paper, The Future is Today: Inspiring Nurses to Write (I-WIN) is the description of a program collaboration between the Nursing Department and the Medical Library at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. (more…)

NIH Request for Information Yields Important Public Input on the Value of NLM Products and Services

In January of 2015 NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, formed a working group of the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director (ACD) for the purpose of reviewing the programs of the NLM and making recommendations for a vision for the library that would ensure its continued role as an international leader in biomedical and health information. In carrying out its charge, the working group issued a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting public input regarding NLM. The RFI was active from February 13 to March 13, 2015, with 650 respondents providing feedback. At NLM’s September 17, 2015, Board of Regents meeting, Dr. Barbara Rapp, Chief, Office of Planning and Analysis, summarized the responses to the NIH RFI. She found that comments were submitted from across the broad range of NLM users, including medical librarians; researchers in biomedicine, biomedical informatics and computational biology; clinical, public health, and emergency response practitioners; historians; health information technology developers; journal publishers; and educators. (more…)

Native Voices in the Southwest: Traveling Exhibit Visits Tucson!

by Yamila El-Khayat, M.A.
Outreach Services Librarian
University of Arizona Health Sciences Library
Tucson, AZ

Collage of attendees at the Native Voices in the Southwest Conference

The University of Arizona Health Sciences Library (UAHSL) hosted the very successful Native Voices in the Southwest Conference, a two-day event held in October, 2015, featuring the National Library of Medicine’s Native Voices traveling exhibit. The Conference provided time and space to discuss and learn more about health, wellness, and medicine among Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. The event was launched with an insightful talk given by a panel of Native American health care professionals, highlighting Native American Culture in Patient- Centered Care. During lunch, attendees were treated with the opportunity to meet Dr. Donald A.B. Lindberg, National Library of Medicine Director Emeritus, who provided an insightful talk, illuminating his progressive vision for the world’s largest biomedical library, and how he foresaw the important role that information technology would play. The day concluded with a screening and discussion about the film, Carlos Montezuma: Changing Is Not Vanishing, about a Native American Arizonan physician in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The second day of the Conference featured opportunities to have additional interactions with Dr. Lindberg, including a Q&A session and informal conversations held on both the University of Arizona health science and general academic campuses. These casual moments gave students, faculty and staff the opportunity to meet this groundbreaking professional “up close and personal” and learn more about this highly influential and innovative leader. The Native Voices exhibit was on display at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Library from August 24 through December 8, 2015, attracting many community members and increasing the visibility of the library.

NLM Traveling Exhibit: Pick Your Poison: Intoxicating Pleasures and Medical Prescriptions

by Miranda Lam, MLIS, Medical Librarian and
Darlene Parker-Kelly, MSLS, Director
Health Sciences Library
Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science
Los Angeles, CA

In celebration of the 2015 National Medical Librarians Month, Charles R. Drew University (CDU) Health Sciences Library proudly displayed the National Library of Medicine’s Pick Your Poison traveling exhibit. This particular exhibit is CDU Health Sciences Library’s fifth such exhibition and it is an opportunity to cultivate conversations with students, faculty, staff and the community. From the exhibit, one learns about the evolution of perceptions of select mind altering drugs in American society: tobacco, alcohol, opium, cocaine, and marijuana. (more…)

NLM 2015 AIDS Community Information Outreach Projects Announced!

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) funded six HIV/AIDS Community Information Outreach Projects in September 2015, in the 22nd round of the program. NLM has continued its HIV/AIDS-related outreach efforts to community-based organizations, patient advocacy groups, faith-based organizations, departments of health, and libraries. This program provides support to design local programs for improving information access for HIV/AIDS patients and the affected community, as well as their caregivers. Congratulations to all the recipients! (more…)

Celebrating National Medical Librarians Month 2015!

NMLM Poster: Are You A Risk Taker?October is National Medical Librarians Month (NMLM)! Highlighting the fact that medical librarians are the best and most cost effective way to obtain quality health information, this year’s NMLM theme is Are You A Risk Taker? When you need to be right, ask your medical librarian. In honor of this event, we are recognizing the contributions of medical librarians by promoting Network member outreach projects. (more…)

NLM Funds Three New Disaster Health Information Outreach and Collaboration Projects!

For the fifth year, NLM has funded projects for partnerships between libraries and organizations that have disaster-related responsibilities. The partnerships will work together to improve use of disaster medicine and public health information by librarians, health professionals, first responders, emergency planners, and others responsible for disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. Projects will increase the use of high-quality online resources on disaster topics including those from the National Library of Medicine. (more…)

Express Outreach Award Highlights: Teaching Mobile Access to Health Information and Promoting MedlinePlus Connect

by Naomi C. Broering, MLS, MA, FMLA
Dean of Libraries
Pacific College of Oriental Medicine
San Diego, CA

Mobile devices are popular for using the powers of a conventional computer in environments where carrying one would be impractical. Loading pertinent Apps to mobile devices makes access to information, when needed, quick and easy. Instantaneous, on-demand access of NLM’s PubMed and MedlinePlus mobile sites accelerates results to health information queries and improves health care delivery. There is no doubt that MedlinePlus Connect for practitioners with EHR capability provides immediate highly useful patient education summaries during an office or hospital visit. However, there are major segments of San Diego’s diverse community without the ability or knowledge to benefit from these advances. (more…)
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