The Dear Abby Friends and Family Health Kit is a collection of 20 quick to read, easy to understand publications from the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Women’s Health and the General Services Administration’s Federal Citizen Information Center.

Health topics include:

• Asthma
• Glucose Meters
  
• Heart Disease
• Menopause
• Sleep Problems
• Tattoos and Permanent Makeup
• And More!

Order a FREE kit for yourself and more to share with friends and family. You can also read the publications electronically.

Congratulations to Susan Bloomfield, Deborah Clark, Dina McKelvy and Lucinda White on their excellent article, Health Sciences Libraries, featured in the Maine Policy Review. The article highlights ways health sciences libraries support clinicians, work with patients and consumers, keep administrators informed of changing industry trends, health care regulations and the latest research, and support technology including mobile devices and EMRs. Read the article at: http://bit.ly/10VzkmI.

The Journal of Consumer Health on the Internet (JCHI) has a New Column, “Patient/Patron Perspectives”. This is a brand-new column and Amy Knehans, my co-editor, and I are looking for any information professionals in any type of library (public, academic, hospital) who would be interested in writing for this new column.

Amy and I have developed the scope so far- this is not binding- and any feedback or ideas are welcome! If you are interested, please reply to Amy and me at our emails address, within the scope. We will send you the authors’ guidelines, schedule (the column first publishes in the Vol 17, No 4 issues, with an August 2013 deadline) asap. Scope is below:

“This column is intended to illustrate the perspectives of consumers of health information found on the Internet.  The column provides an arena for consumer and health-sciences information professionals to share their use, attitudes, beliefs and understanding of health-related information found on the Internet.  Consumer use of the Internet for health information is large and growing.  According to the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, specific diseases and treatment continue to dominate people’s online queries and, for one-third of U.S.adults, the Internet is a diagnostic tool. (report: Health Online 2013)

The emerging consumer role can have implications for health care relationships. There are benefits and dangers associated with health advice on the Internet.  Each article in the Consumer/Patient Perspectives’ column will focus on consumers of health and their perspectives on consumer-health found on the Internet.  Any librarians interested in submitting comments or material for publication should contact Mary Ellen Nolan, MLS, AHIP and Amy Knehans, MLIS, AHIP.  Ms. Nolan’s e-mail address is hospitallibrarian@yahoo.com and Ms. Knehans’ e-mail is aknehans@hmc.psu.edu, respectively.  Please enter the e-mail subject line, PROPOSAL FOR JCHI ARTICLE.

Column Co-Editors:

Mary Ellen Nolan, MLS, AHIP

Consumer Health Librarian

New Hanover County Public Library

201 Chestnut Street

Wilmington, NC 28401

Amy Knehans, MLIS, AHIP

The George T. Harrell Library

M.S. Hershey Medical Center

Penn State University

P. O. Box 850

Hershey,  PA 17033″

If you have any questions, comments, ideas, or anything, let Amy and me know.  This is an exciting opportunity for any librarians who are interested in consumer health to become published authors, and to share your great ideas or insights with other librarians who deal with consumer health.

Hope to hear from you all soon.

Regards,

Mary Ellen Nolan and Amy Knehans

Join us to get an update on Meaningful Use and its impact on the healthcare environment – don’t just hear about it, know about it!

On May 14th at 10am Janice McCallum will be presenting Meaningful Use Briefing for MedLibs  hosted by the NNLM/NER – COI – Health IT. Janice is a leading authority on commercial applications of healthcare data across all stakeholder groups, including providers, clinicians, payers, life sciences, government and patients.

She currently works as Managing Director of Health Content Advisors, where she advises STM publishers, Health IT companies, healthcare analytics firms, and healthcare providers that produce data as a primary or secondary business.

Join us for a webinar on May 14, 2013 to learn more. 
Time: 10 – 11 AM EST
Register on our NER Training Calendar

(Psst, now you can get our postings in your inbox, just register with an account and scroll down, click on the categories you would like to receive and then click update.)