The Emergency Access Initiative (EAI) managed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) will end free access for Haiti earthquake response on Friday, March 19, 2010. The Initiative will have been active for 8 weeks since soon after the Haiti earthquake, thanks to the generous participation of several publishers.

EAI (http://eai.nlm.nih.gov) provides temporary free access to online journals and e-books for users affected by a disaster. The primary goal is to provide a temporary collection replacement for users whose normal access to biomedical literature is unavailable through the destruction of infrastructure at the site of a disaster. It also serves as a resource to medical personnel deployed to those areas.

NLM is interested in any feedback you have on the EAI project. In particular, they are interested in feedback from medical personnel that were deployed to Haiti or other disaster event; or from library staff supporting those personnel. They would like feedback on the project itself, the web site, and the content. They are very interested to hear stories from Haiti responders and others who may have benefited from having access to these books and journals. Also, if you needed access and were unable to get it or didn’t know about EAI until now, please let them know. Comments may be sent to through NLM’s customer service form at http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/mainweb/siebel/nlm/index.cfm or emailed to custserv@nlm.nih.gov.

NLM’s Specialized Information Services (SIS) has released an update for the Toxicology and Environmental Health (TEHIP) page (http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro.html).

One of the goals of the update was to make the site more approachable and understandable with the use of images, descriptions, and other tools. The site is now easier to navigate with less scrolling.

They welcome comments and feedback at http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/feedback.html.

Have you ever read a medical word and wondered how to pronounce it? Do your customers ask you for help pronouncing medical words? MedlinePlus can help!

The MedlinePlus medical dictionary now includes audio pronunciations. Learn how to say words like ptosis, Sjogren’s and fibrillation. Search the medical dictionary on MedlinePlus and then click on the red speaker icon to hear the pronunciation.

If you have any questions or comments about this new feature, please send them to the MedlinePlus team via the contact form on MedlinePlus.

Here is a statement from the National Library of Medicine with more details on deciding factors and eventual plans to phase out Go Local.

For approximately ten years, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) has provided infrastructure support and minimal start up funding for Go Local sites around the United States. In 2001, Go Local was an exciting new service and many organizations around the country accepted the challenge of building and promoting local sites and providing what many considered a natural extension to existing library services. It was a service that our partner organizations supported and promoted to the extent possible, even with limited resources. Many Go Locals gained support from state and university officials and funding from external resources. Go Local sites, now over 30 in number, provide excellent outreach services, opportunities for partnerships, and greater visibility for libraries in the local community.

However, there have always been concerns expressed by staff at the sites and also at NLM. Among these concerns are: the amount of staff time required to maintain each Go Local site, low use at many sites, the inability of some sites to keep records current, shrinking library budgets that result in fewer resources to support and sustain sites, and NLM’s inability to increase funding levels due to a tight federal budget. As the members of South Central Academic Medical Libraries Consortium (SCAMEL) described the situation in a recent letter to Betsy Humphreys, Deputy Director, NLM, “an under-defined or under-maintained Go Local database has the potential to cause more harm than having no information at all”.

In late 2009 and 2010 NLM staff, partnering with Go Local staff, began examining the situation. The group did an environmental scan, identified goals and strategies, looked at use statistics, and had conference calls with the Go Local sites. The goals of the examination and subsequent recommendations were to find ways to decrease the level of effort required to maintain the Go Local sites while increasing the usefulness of Go Local to the public.

NLM staff and Go Local partners have spent almost 300 hours since last July examining Go Local, hoping to come up with a redesign or a revitalization plan to increase usage, better meet user needs, and achieve a strong buy-in from partner institutions. What we found was this:

1. Other sources, such as search engines, do an equal or better job providing access to health services information. Moreover, their costs are negligible because they crawl Web sites whereas Go Local contributors manually create and maintain data, thereby incurring higher labor costs. Insurance company sites provide added value that Go Local can’t, and at the provider level, such as service hours, parking information, fee schedules, quality measures and in some cases, even patient reviews.
2. Use of Go Local is trending dramatically downward even as we add sites and the percentage of population served increases.
3. Neither NLM nor many Go Local sites have the funding or staffing needed to support and grow Go Local.
4. Staff hours spent at Go Local sites are declining and there is a backlog in auditing the information provided at many sites.
5. Users don’t return to Go Local, or recommend it to colleagues, family or friends as evidenced by the decline in use. Compelling web sites increase in use by providing a service people return to and recommend.

Despite NLM staff at all levels wishing fervently that this program could be reinvigorated and sustained, we were left with no choice but to eventually cease its support. With shrinking usage, it is an extremely poor return on time and effort by NLM and our Go Local partners. Today’s Internet resources have surpassed what was an exceptional idea in 2001. Many Go Local sites are struggling to keep current; and data shows that even strong outreach efforts yield low use in return.

NLM is working with all the Go Local partners to discuss the next steps. We have no intention of stopping support at once. NLM and your Regional Medical Library (RML) will work with each Go Local, individually, to determine what to do next for these sites. Some may wish to continue on their own in some fashion; many have commitments to staff and their institutions. We take this transition effort quite seriously and recognize our obligation to work with each of the Go Local sites. NLM thanks the hundreds of people who worked so hard to build Go Local, to share its many successes, and to demonstrate the strength of the medical library community. Now it is time to move forward.

[Forwarded from AHRQ]

Ensuring Cultural Competence Across Care Settings

How can health care settings meet the pressing needs of diverse populations? Join innovators from AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange as they discuss how cultural competency can be the foundation for effective innovations on childhood obesity, health care access, and other health care services.

This free Webinar will be held Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 4:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Savings Time (US/Canada)

The following innovations will be highlighted.
• Group-Based, Culturally Sensitive Weight-Loss Program for Families Leads to Improvements in Children’s Health-Related Behaviors and Declines in Body Mass Index

• Bilingual, Culturally Competent Community Health Workers Increase Insurance Enrollment, Access to Care, and Self-Efficiency

To register for this free Webinar, go to: https://compx08.eventcenterlive.com/cfmx/ec/register/reg.cfm?BID=1&RegID=01FA68C7

Check out other innovations at AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange at: http://www.innovations.ahrq.gov

Those of you who attended our Town Hall Meeting last Friday (26 February). Heard presentations on Health IT and their current implementation at the states and hospital level. NER and NAHSL are hosting several sites for the next MLA Webcast on the Electronic Health Record:

MLA’s Educational Webcast: Now’s the Time: Understanding the Electronic Health Record Maze and Health Sciences Librarians’ Roles

Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 2:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m., Eastern time.

The goal of this program is to clarify the terminology surrounding the emerging electronic health information environment and to illustrate how and why health sciences librarians can and should become engaged with the efforts to achieve the national 2014 goal of instituting an electronic health record for each person in the United States.
Program Objectives

* To remove the ambiguity and confusion revolving around the electronic health environment. Technology, management, and the exchange of health information will be discussed.
* To illustrate the emerging electronic health information environment by profiling working electronic medical records (EMRs), electronic health records (EHRs), and personal health records (PHRs).
* To highlight the recent involvement health sciences librarians have had with EMRs, EHRs, and PHRs.

Sites: Lamar Soutter Library in Worcester: Register online!

Watch the NAHSL Blog for details on registering for the session at other sites.

Check out the March issue of NIH News in Health, the monthly newsletter bringing you practical health news and tips based on the latest NIH research.

This edition features articles about:

• salt and blood pressure
• aneurysms
• how light boosts migraine pain
• health on the go

To request print copies free of charge for your library, doctor’s office or institution, please email or call 301-435-7489 for more information. Or, print the PDF.

To recommend topics for upcoming issues or share how you use the newsletter, visit the NIH News in Health Facebook wall.

The National Library of Medicine announces a new page of Chile earthquake information for those in the United States and elsewhere who are monitoring or responding to the medical and public health needs in Chile. It is available at http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov/dimrc/chileearthquake.html.

The page lists new Web links about the Chile earthquake aftermath from both government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). People locators, social media resources, and alerts for travelers to Chile are also listed.

A separate page on “Earthquakes – Resources for Response and Recovery” (http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov/dimrc/earthquakes.html) links to background information on earthquakes and subsequent health issues, such as traumatic injuries, guidelines for responders, stress and coping, and sanitation issues.

Please send your comments and suggestions about additional Chile-related health information content to tehip@teh.nlm.nih.gov. This information is compiled by the Disaster Information Management Research Center, Specialized Information Services, US National Library of Medicine.

The second annual Science Bootcamp for Librarians will be held at UMASS Lowell June 9-11th. This year’s topics include genetics, climate change, and remote sensing. For further details, go to http://guides.library.umass.edu/BootCamp2010

The Emergency Access Initiative (EAI) is a partnership of the National Library of Medicine, the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, and the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers. EAI provides free access to full text articles from major biomedicine titles to healthcare professionals, librarians, and the public in the United States affected by disasters. The Initiative was activated on January 25 and free access to full text publications has been extended to March 19, 2010. For more information go to: http://eai.nlm.nih.gov.