MLA is coming and the GMR will be there.  Take time to link up with one of us!
Additionally,  GMR folk are participating at MLA in the following ways:

Continuing Education: Saturday, May 4 (8:00 am – Noon)
CE 100: Making a Difference in Health Care: Patient Safety, a Global Issue with National and International Solutions

Chapter Roundtables: Sunday, May 5 (12 noon – 1:30 pm)
23. Teaching Evidence Based Medicine to Students & Faculty

Poster Session 1: Sunday, May 5 (1:30 pm – 2:30 pm)
Topic: 225. Organization and Outreach: Building a Microsoft Access Database to Improve Circulation Service to Our Community

For more details on these events:
(more…)

It’s already February, the sun is rising a bit earlier, and for a lot of us, it’s still light on the commute home. Almost. Those of us who are optimists can see spring on the horizon. What better time to start planning an outreach project!

The GMR will be making announcements on GMRLIST and here in the blog regarding potential funding for outreach and other projects as we prepare for the next contract year, Option Year 2 (May 1, 2013-April 30, 2014). What should a potential outreach award applicant prepare in anticipation of the funding season? Here are a few considerations:

• Start collecting data on your targeted population; Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce (phpartners.org) has an excellent Health Data Tools and Statistics site that will help you find County, Local, State and National Health Data: http://phpartners.org/health_stats.html

• Not sure of the types of potential funding that come through the GMR? Take a look at the variety of awards and subcontracts that have been funded over the past two years on our Funding Recipients page as well as the previous contract, Funding Recipients-2006-2011 Contract.

• Thinking of working with another library or organization such as a CBO? The NN/LM Members Directory Advanced Search provides an easy way to find NN/LM members by institution name, person name, city, state, zip code, county or area code in addition to searching my type of services offered at the institution. Check out the Advanced Search page by clicking on the NN/LM Members Directory image below:

For more information about funding opportunities or other GMR services, contact your state’s GMR Coordinator: http://nnlm.gov/gmr/about/staff.html.

Greetings of the Season! The Holidays will provide us a time to reflect, restore, and re-acquaint ourselves with family and friends before we resume the fast pace of our work lives in the New Year.

That fast pace yields many benefits, including high productivity. In the fall of 2012, the GMR staff collectively attended 10 state and/or local health sciences meetings, plus all staff participated at the Midwest Chapter of the Medical Library Association conference–exhibiting, presenting and teaching classes. A total of 537 participants were engaged in 20 trainings and presentations offered by the GMR staff; an additional 355 participants benefited from GMR-sponsored classes. (more…)

Where can I find reliable health information available in Chinese?

 What steps can I take to control diabetes?

 How can I keep healthy?

 Do you have these questions and want to find the answers in Chinese? From our work at outreach events, such as the Annual Asian American Health Fair, we know that many people do. The place to go is MedlinePlus, a website created by the National Library of Medicine. It contains reliable, up-to-date health information that’s easy to understand, for patients and health professionals alike. The Taubman Health Sciences Library has created a new video to show you how to find health information that is available in Chinese.

Chinese translation of this post available on our blog: http://healthoutreach.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/medlineplus-resources-in-chinese/

Link to video: http://youtu.be/i-UJAV6MqDw

Embed video code:

<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/i-UJAV6MqDw?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>

We have also created a cartoon to help advertise the video!

The Chicago Area Medical Archivists, an organization of librarians, archivists, and others interested in the history of medicine, nursing, and pharmacy, will hold the organization’s tenth medical history symposium on Friday, October 26, 2012. The event will take place at the Lurie Children’s Hospital (225 East Chicago Avenue, 16th Floor Conference Room).

A day-long program of presentations will include a history of the University of Chicago Hospitals by Mindy Schwartz, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

Coffee will be available at 9:00 a.m. The presentations will begin at 10:00 a.m.

Those interested in attending the event should RSVP to Ron Sims (RNSMS@northwestern.edu or 312.503.1913).

The National Library of Medicine recently released a mobile app that is intended to serve as the authoritative guide to NLM mobile resources. The app was created as an HTML 5 mobile Web site in support of the Library’s ongoing efforts to make our information broadly available. Learn more about this new resource via the NLM Technical Bulletin article or explore the app on your mobile device at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mobile-app/.

The Library welcomes your feedback about this new app via its Contact Us link.

Fran E. Kovach, MLIS, AHIP
Reference & Education Librarian
Medical Library
Southern Illinois University School of Medicine
Springfield, IL

The ILLINOIS RURAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION 23RD ANNUAL CONFERENCE, “Building a Sustainable Future”, was held April 24-26, 2012, at the Keller Convention Center in Effingham, Illinois. In rural Illinois, many different mobile devices including iPhones, Androids, BlackBerries, and iPads are the new stethoscopes. Exhibitor immersion in the conference sessions led to discussions of the use of the National Library of Medicine mobile apps and mobile sites in rural communities.  TOXNET, Medline Plus Farm Health and Safety, and Wiser NIH all received high praises from the HazMat teams.

Through a NN/LM GMR exhibit award, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine Library displayed the new NLM exhibit banner, provided NLM pamphlets, gave out the afghan of “The Curious Herbal” as a booth prize, and offered demonstrations on the iPad of the various NLM mobile sites and apps, including Wiser. After seeing the Wiser demo, a family physician immediately downloaded it onto his iPad. Exhibiting and participating in the annual Illinois Rural Health Association meeting continues to be a worthwhile and rewarding experience.

Healthy People 2020 provides tools for working in the community. MAP-IT, which stands for Mobilize, Assess, Plan, Implement, Track, is a five-stage framework that can be used to plan and evaluate public health interventions to achieve Healthy People 2020 objectives. MAP-IT pages include Planning and Funding resources to help get you on your way. MAP-IT badges may also be inserted in a blog or web page as a link to these resources. Just copy the provided code and insert in your site: http://healthypeople.gov/2020/connect/webBadge.aspx

Healthy People is based on a simple but powerful model:

• Establish national health objectives.
• Provide data and tools to enable States, cities, communities, and individuals across the country to combine their efforts to achieve them.
• Create and implement a plan to reach Healthy People 2020 objectives.
• Track your community’s progress.

The IOM Roundtable on Health Literacy has made available a paper describing the ten attributes of a health literate organization, that is, “an organization that makes it easier for people to navigate, understand, and use information and services to take care of their health”: http://iom.edu/Global/Perspectives/2012/Attributes.aspx

The slide set is available for viewing and download: Attributes of a Health Literate Organization.ppt