In This Issue:

• Welcome
  
  
• Director's CorNER
  
  
• A Word About the Name
  
  
• Ill Advised
  
  
• Know Tech
  
  
• Tres Chic
  
  
• Membership Drive
  
  
• Wise Guys
  
  
• Links
  
  

From the field...

Greetings to folks throughout New England! Over the past 6 months I've had the opportunity to meet and work with a good many of you who have more than a passing interest in consumer health. While most of us are busy in libraries that serve providers and administrators, I hope we are finding our work with consumers to be one of the more satisfying parts of the job.

The Internet and the patient's frustrations with current health care systems have made consumer health one of the most interesting areas in medical library practice. Because consumer health information (CHI) has in some ways been re-discovered, it is an area of growing research. Some of the topics include:

· Patient empowerment

· Patient-provider electronic communication

· CHI to special populations

· The gap between the techno-haves and the techno-have-nots

· The health care economy and information content providers

· Evaluation of consumer health information content

· Culturally competent caregiving

From time to time I'll be listing some recent publications that touch upon our work in consumer health information. In addition to highlighting some of the research, one of my goals with this column is to make it an area that features some of the region's interesting consumer health related projects. Here are two quickies:

Holyoke Consumer Health Library Inc: Mt. Holyoke College Science Librarian Sandy Ward is spearheading Holyoke's efforts to establish a consumer health library. The diverse group includes public health workers, librarians, health administrators from area hospitals, libraries, and community organizations. They've secured funding and have made great progress.

Women's Center and Multicultural Library: Champlain Valley AHEC Information Resource Coordinator Peter Jones is putting the pieces together to establish two (yep, two!) resource centers. One to serve women at a Job Corps program; the other is to be part of a refugee resettlement program. The multicultural library will be housed at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). The multicultural library is a project with the Vermont Department of Health Office of Minority Health and the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. In both libraries students in the health professions will do presentations as part of their rotations. Both collections are collaborative projects designed to increase student experiences and support community health.

I invite folks to send along ideas or write-ups of their own projects. Tell us also about any research articles that you've come across. Have a related book that absolutely everyone should be reading? Let us know…

Meanwhile I'd like to report to you about a conference I recently attended. The annual Conference on Patient Education was held in Seattle and attended by health educators, nurses, physicians, and other health professionals. While this was the conference's 22nd meeting, there were few librarians at hand. Quick highlights:

System Change and Patient Expectations was a talk given by Charles B. Inlander of the People's Medical Society. Inlander railed on the health care industry's unwillingness to shift towards a more consumer centered approach. Inlander stated that the role of the patient educator should be one where the educator is guiding the patient/consumer through appropriate resources and helping the consumer with how best to use the health care system.

Our role in the patient education process was illustrated nicely in a diagram presented by Robin Mockenhaupt of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; my version of it is included here. The diagram illustrates how customer health informatics intersects with other health informatics areas like public health and clinical/medical systems. Her discussion of Is the e-Health Frontier Changing the Patient Education Landscape? pointed out the functions of e-health are under a 5-C model: Content Connectivity Community Commerce and Care.

In this issue I've also included a small list of recent articles and papers that might be of interest to those of us doing consumer health services. Peace and good health to all, Javier.

Javier Crespo, Consumer Health Information Coordinator

Recent Articles and Papers

A small selection of readings related to consumer health information.

Eng, T.R. The eHealth Landscape: A Terrain Map of Emerging Information and Communication Technologies in Health and Health Care. Princeton, NJ: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2001.

From the preface: "The purpose of this document is to summarize the major players, issues and emerging trends and technologies in the eHealth arena…"

Berland, G. Health Information on the Internet: Accessibility, Quality, and Readability in English and Spanish. JAMA May23/30, 2001 Vol. 285, No. 20.

Also published as a RAND study "Proceed with Caution", From the Conclusion: "Accessing health information using search engines and simple search terms is not efficient. Coverage of key information…is poor and inconsistent although the accuracy of the information provided is generally good. High reading levels are required to comprehend Web-based health information."

Harris Interactive Inc. Ethics and the Internet: Consumers vs. Webmasters October 5, 2000.

Report commissioned by the Internet Healthcare Coalition and the National Mental Health Association focused on the experiences and perceptions of the online public and website developer. "…public is less likely to draw distinctions between commercial and independent published information."

Taylor, H. Cyberchondriacs Update. The Harris Poll #19, April 18, 2001, 52% of respondents look for health care using a portal or search engine.

Woloshin S. Direct-to-consumer advertisements for prescription drugs: What are Americans being sold? The Lancet, October 6, 2001 Vol. 358, pp1141-46.

There has been growing concern about direct-to-consumer advertisements. This study examined the content and frequency of such advertising.