The federal government’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has developed a free resource to help health care providers learn more about the evidence supporting eight quality improvement strategies. “Closing the Quality Gap: Revisiting the State of the Science” offers Executive Summaries of eight evidence reports that focus on various aspects of health care quality. AHRQ’s evidence reports offer an unbiased analysis of available research on specific health care topics. The individual reports are:

• “Bundled Payment: Effects on Health Care Spending and Quality” 12-E007-1
• “The Patient-Centered Medical Home” 12-E008-1
• “Quality Improvement Interventions to Address Health Disparities” 12-E009-1
• “Medication Adherence Interventions: Comparative Effectiveness” 12-E010-1
• “Public Reporting as a Quality Improvement Strategy” 12-E011-1
• “Prevention of Healthcare–Associated Infections” 12(13)-E012-1
• “Quality Improvement Measurement of Outcomes for People With Disabilities” 12(13)-E013-1
• “Improving Health Care and Palliative Care for Advanced and Serious Illness” 12(13)-E014-1

To order the set, request publication OM 13-0014 from the AHRQ Publications Clearinghouse.  To order individual reports, please order by title and publication number.  For online copies, go to the AHRQ web site  (http://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/evidence-based-reports/)./ch

• Spotlight on National Library of Medicine Resources – Wed. May 22, 2013, 1:00 MT, 2:00 CT – Multiple Language Resources.  Research conducted over the past 25 years has shown a strong correlation between language barriers and poor quality health care. Language can affect the accuracy of patient histories, the ability to engage in treatment decision-making, poorer understanding of a medical diagnosis or treatment, underuse of primary and preventative services, lower use and misuse of prescription medications, and a decreased level of patient trust. In the MidContinental Region there are many languages used:  American Sign Language, Arabic, Cambodian, Chinese, Cushite, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Laotian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Thai, Urdu, and Vietnamese. Maybe more! In this session, Dana Abbey will discuss free and authoritative resources for meeting the multi-language health information needs in your community.

One MLA CE credit will be available for this class.

NOTE NEW URL:  https://utahntc.adobeconnect.com/mcr Equipment: connection to the Internet and a phone,  Login: as a guest with your first and last name. Instructions to connect to the audio will show up once you’ve logged in. Captioning will be provided.  Questions to mmagee@unmc.edu. (mm)

• Breezing Along with the RML – Wed. May 15, 2013 , 10:00 MT 11:00 CT – Recapping the Medical Library Association conference – presented by the RML team.

NOTE NEW URL:  http://utahntc.adobeconnect.com/mcr Equipment: connection to the Internet and a phone,  Login: as a guest with your first and last name. Instructions to connect to the audio will show up once you’ve logged in. Captioning will be provided.  Questions to mmagee@unmc.edu. (mm)

Lyfechannel is the winner of the healthfinder.gov Mobile App Challenge. The winning app, called myfamily, will help individuals manage their family’s health through customized prevention information for each family member. /da

The Disaster Information Management Research Center (DIMRC) has some great resources for libraries, including many free, on-demand webinars. Here are two recent offerings:

The Ambulance-Riding Librarian: How Embedded Informationists Help the Responder Community
Kacy Allgood shared her experiences as a provider information services to Indianapolis EMS; the Indiana University Department of Emergency Medicine; MESH, a disaster preparedness agency; and Indiana Emergency Medical Services for Children. All of these agencies collaborate to provide evidence based pre-hospital care for Indianapolis.

Information Support During Emergencies: About VOST (Virtual Operations Support Team)
Scott Reuter, current president of Oregon VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters) and DHS/FEMA certified course instructor for the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, and Marlita Reddy Hjelmfelt, Team Lead of Pacific Northwest VOST and member of the VOST Leadership Council shared information about VOST, including how they lend social media and information support to incident management teams.

/da

• Breezing Along with the RML – Wed. May 15, 2013 , 10:00 MT 11:00 CT – Recapping the Medical Library Association conference – presented by the RML team.
• Spotlight on National Library of Medicine Resources – Wed. May 22, 2013, 1:00 MT, 2:00 CT – Multiple Language Resources – presented by Dana Abbey . One MLA CE credit will be available for this class.

NOTE NEW URL:  http://utahntc/adobeconnect.com/mcr Equipment: connection to the Internet and a phone,  Login: as a guest with your first and last name. Instructions to connect to the audio will show up once you’ve logged in. Captioning will be provided.  Questions to mmagee@unmc.edu. (mm)

U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has named its MedlinePlus Connect a “Secretary’s Pick” for the HHSinnovates award. MedlinePlus Connect is a free service that allows any electronic health record (EHR) system to easily link users to MedlinePlus, an authoritative, up-to-date information resource for patients, families and health care providers. MedlinePlus provides information about conditions and disorders, medications, and health and wellness./da

For more on this announcement click here.

The MCR is presenting a session on electronic resources and licensing on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 2 p.m. Mountain Time, 3 p.m. Central Time.

Content includes basics of licensing terms, contracts and resources that librarians may use when working with vendors to forge that agreement. Please join us for this event.

FREE !

URL: https://webmeeting.nih.gov/memberservices .

Login: Key your name in window and click “Enter Room” You will be automatically prompted with phone instructions  in room.

Questions to Jim Honour jhonour@uwyo.edu  .  [jh]

Were you unable to attend the forum on “The Research Lifecycle: Partnering for Success?”  You can still experience it and earn 5 MLA CE credits by taking a new online asynchronous class based on the one-day forum.  Registration is now open for “The Research Lifecycle: data management, institutional research profiles, networking, collaboration, oh my!”  The class will be available on 4/29/2013 and you may register at http://ow.ly/klseo and complete the class at your convenience.  If you have any questions, please contact:

Rachel Vukas (rvukas@kumc.edu, 913-588-7307) or John Bramble (john.bramble@utah.edu, 801 585 5743)