The University of North Dakota’s Library of the Health Sciences exhibited at the Grand Forks Women’s Show Oct. 1, providing an opportunity to share NN/LM resources with more than 1,900 people.

For the second year we shared the booth with Dr. Edward Sauter’s research team. Dr. Sauter is professor of surgery at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences and does extensive breast cancer research and education. The exhibit provided both an outlet to discuss health topics with consumers and a place for women to actively participate in the research. We will be able to continue to participate in the translational research platform being built by the University of North Dakota through efforts like this exhibit.

We were able to make contacts with healthcare professionals who were interested in consumer health resources. A local senior center encouraged us to drop brochures and MedlinePlus magazines off for their clientele. Our supply of printed materials for MedlinePlus and Household Products were depleted by the end of the day.

Nominated organizations had to have an innovative project in at least one of three health promotion areas: healthy weight, physical activity, and nutrition. Awards were granted based on the criteria of creativity and innovation, leadership, sustainability, replicability, and results/outcomes. Some of the winners are in our region:

• Public Sector: Exercise Your Right to Feel Better Minnesota—St. Paul-Ramsey County Public Health (St. Paul, Minn.)
• Healthy Workplace (Large employer): Shape up and Go!—Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, Ohio)
• Faith-Based and/or Community Initiatives: Taking the YMCA’s Diabetes Prevention Program to Scale—YMCA of the USA, (Chicago, Ill.)

The press release can be found here: http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2011pres/07/20110715a.html and more information including a video by Secretary Sebelius, http://healthylivinginnovation.challenge.gov/

Congratulations to the winners!

Check the contract updates, new communication technologies and information about upcoming exhibits and training opportunities.

Happy summer!

With the new NLM contract, the BHIC blog has moved over to become a national blog, and staff at four other RMLs (including the GMR!) will be contributing writers. The new URL is http://nnlm.gov/bhic/.

If you want to receive a daily digest of the BHIC blog postings, just email Siobhan Champ-Blackwell, at siobhan at creighton.edu, and you will be added to a distribution LISTSERV. The distribution list sends out only one email a day. You can subscribe directly to the blog and get an email each time a posting is made (4-5 emails a day). An RSS feed is also available.

According to Siobhan, “We are excited that the BHIC blog is recognized as a national resource, and we are looking forward to the growth that will occur through the participation of the other RMLs”. The GMR is proud to be a contributor to this great resource.

“The Consumer Health Library offers a wide spectrum of resources to meet the health information needs of our community,” says Stevo Roksandic, Director of Library Services. “With our personal assistance and guidance through the vast resources of this new library and todays’ informational abundance we can assist consumers in understanding disease and treatment options as well as exploring areas of prevention, health and wellness.”

Located on the Mount Carmel West Hospital campus, the Consumer Health Library sits adjacent to The Nursing Center for Family Health, a nurse managed health center which is a partnership of the Mount Carmel College of Nursing and Lower Lights Christian Health Center.  Roksandic anticipates many visitors from the Nursing Center, as well as through physician offices and other regional health providers. “The library provides a reading area, computer work stations, selected Consumer Health periodicals, books, audio visual materials and a children’s play area. Reference services, customer support and personal information assistance are provided by professional library staff.”

The Consumer Health Library offers access to a specifically designed Consumer Health website, http://www.mccn.edu/consumerhealthlibrary, to meet the customers’ information literacy skills and reading levels of those served. “It’s a wonderful service to our community”, adds Roksandic, “Whether it’s via e-mail, live chat or in person, the Consumer Health Library is the ‘go to’ resource for health and wellness information.”

The Pacific College of Oriental Medicine (PCOM) Library recently finished its Health Information Outreach to Community Partners project. Generously funded as an Outreach Express award by the NN/LM Greater Midwest Region, the project involved presentations to established PCOM community partners on health information resources from NLM and NIH.

The award funded the purchase of a laptop, projector, and portable projector screen, as well as digitizing hardware and software.  The presentations ranged from informal to formal, and the audience size varied from one to nearly seventy.  Presentations were well received; I really banged the drum for MedlinePlus and other pertinent NLM sites.

The following partners participated: Alternative Medicine for Veterans Project, Chicago Women’s Health Center, American Indian Center, and Project Vida. I had hoped also to present at a local women’s shelter but PCOM no longer has a relationship with the shelter, and my phone and email inquiries went unanswered.  I was able to get wireless internet except in one case, which was OK, because I prudently had a PowerPoint back-up ready. I also learned that when traveling to a new venue to be prepared! In addition to a back-up PowerPoint, pack an extension cord and dress in layers. When working with community based organizations, if strapped for time, concentrate on MedlinePlus and lead to other resources from it.

For each presentation, I had an annotated handout of websites with URLs, and supplemented the give-aways with brochures from NN/LM.  Most of the formal presentations lasted about 30 minutes, but I had an hour at Project Vida, which serves the Hispanic community and is very involved with persons with AIDS/HIV.  I was able to show staff  PubMed and PubMedCentral resources.  Invariably, staff members were impressed with the quality of NLM and NIH freely available resources.  An added bonus of  “getting out there” to these partners was to solidify PCOM’s relationship with them, and, in at least one case, there was a request for me to come back to give the presentation to new staff incoming in the spring.