Outreach, including consumer health activities, is an integral part of Treadwell Library's role at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). As services evolved and collaboration with other hospital programs grew, Treadwell Librarians established themselves among the leaders and innovators in this specialized area of medical librarianship.

The Consumer Health Reference Center

In 1998 and again in 2002, the Treadwell Library received a grant from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners to serve as the Consumer Health Reference Center (CHRC) for Massachusetts. This library-to-library reference service was offered to the six regional Massachusetts library systems. Included were the creation of a core consumer health collection at Treadwell and the delivery of research and reference services to librarians from all types of libraries across the state. Treadwell trained public library staff to find and use consumer health information. Unfortunately, state budget cuts in 2002 eliminated the funding. However, the highly regarded website and newsletter are still available as an archived resource.

CHRC web site: http://www.mgh.harvard.edu/library/chrcindex.html

ARCH: Access to Resources for Community Health

ARCH, Access to Resources for Community Health, is a partnership among MGH Treadwell Library, MGH Community Health Associates, Greater Boston Center for Healthy Communities (a program of The Medical Foundation www.tmfnet.org), and the City of Chelsea Health Department. ARCH's goal is to deliver a high-quality community-based health information to both the residents and professionals of Charlestown, Chelsea, Everett, and Revere. ARCH's center is open to all who work or live in these communities. It improves access to electronic information through a tailored website and training sessions. ARCH has expanded its outreach to school nurses and Head Start teachers in the community. ARCH is funded in part from grants from the New England Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. Ming Sun of the MGH Community Health Associates is ARCH's project manager. Julie Whelan and Michael Lynch of Treadwell Library developed and maintain the ARCH website.

ARCH's website: http://www.mgh.harvard.edu/library/arch/arch.asp

Cancer Resource Room

In 1997, the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center developed the Cancer Resource Room (CRR) staffed by social workers. The friendly and welcoming atmosphere offers a circulating collection of books, videos andmusic for cancer patients. From the start Treadwell has collaborated with the CRR and continues to select materials, provide cataloging, and assist in web development. Treadwell's major role is to provide in-depth research and reference services to patients and families through the CRR staff.

Cancer Resource Room web site: http://cancer.mgh.harvard.edu/Resources/

Digital Information Project (DIP)

As Treadwell's new Director, Elizabeth Schneider in 1999 proposed to the Cancer Resource Room managers that Treadwell create a digital collection of patient education resources for cancer patients and their providers. After several years of collaborative effort that included scanning documents, creating a database with a web front-end, and creating metadata records, the CRR and Treadwell Library celebrated the inauguration of the Digital Information Project in May 2002. Available through the MGH Intranet, DIP contains over 500 documents covering many aspects of cancer and its treatment. These include documents written by MGH staff and others articles from journals and textbooks. Treadwell librarians Julie Whelan and Deborah Jameson manage DIP and train MGH staff to access and use it. The Friends of the MGH Cancer Center funded the student interns and software to make this project possible. Zola Porter, a recent Simmons GSLS graduate, is our current intern.

Plain Language

Treadwell Library leads the way in bringing Plain Language to the MGH. Elizabeth Schneider organized several 2-day Plain Language workshops attended by over one hundred persons representing many MGH departments. Treadwell Library hosts monthly Plain Language Working Group lunch sessions. Staff from different areas in the hospital come together to practice writing clearly and get constructive feedback from people with different perspectives. Carolyn Paul, Sr. Librarian for Access Services, facilitates these meetings. The library purchases books and videos relating to health literacy and plain language and has developed a web page as well.

Health Literacy Resources: Using Plain Language web site:

Community Languages

In October 2003, MGH received a Community Languages LSTA (Library Services and Technology) grant. The grant funds the purchase of multilingual materials in support of the MGH Interpreters Service, the MGH ESL Program and the ARCH project. These growing collections include easy-to-read patient education pamphlets in several languages, multilingual medical dictionaries and anatomy atlases, as well as audio-visual language instruction materials. Obtaining U.S. citizenship is a goal for most ESL students so the grant has also paid for requested books, tapes and videos on U.S. history and life. The Project Coordinators are Julie Whelan and Ming Sun.

Patient Family Learning Center

The Maxwell & Eleanor Blum Patient and Family Learning Center at the Massachusetts General Hospital is staffed with nurses and volunteers to help patients find easy-to-read pamphlets, magazines, audio tapes, videos, CD-ROMs, web sites and both medical and consumer health books. Treadwell Library provides collection development and cataloging services to the Blum Center.

Blum Patient Family Learning Center website: http://www.massgeneral.org/pflc/

The consumer health related services provided by Treadwell Library comes in many different forms. By keeping an eye out for the need, the opportunity and the funding, the Treadwell Librarians share their expertise in satisfying the information needs of the consumer seeking authoritative health information.

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Resources:

Interview with Elizabeth Schneider, Director, Treadwell Library & Julia Whelan, Senior Librarian for Outreach Services, March 18, 2004

Treadwell Library: Massachusetts General Hospital http://www.mgh.harvard.edu/library/default.asp?

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By Michelle Eberle, Consumer Health Information Coordinator
Edited by Elizabeth Schneider, Director, Treadwell Library

NLM User Studies: How do we rate?

The National Library of Medicine is interested in user studies to get feedback on user satisfaction and return rate, to learn more about NLM users, to learn how the NLM can improve, and to monitor user and competitive trends. How does the NLM rate with the public for usability?

Based on the Nielsen/NetRatings in September of 2003 in the US Home Market, the top 5 general purpose health information web sites were:

WebMD, 3 Million unique visitor
NIH.gov, 2,7 M (inclusive of NLM)
AOL Health (powered by WebMD), 1.8 M
MSN Health w/ Web MD, 1.6 M
Yahoo! Health, 1.3 M
CDC.gov, 883K
MayoClinic.com, 467K
KidsHealth.org, 425K
Medscape.com, 407K
HHS.gov, 299K
AMA-assn.org, 257K
FamilyDoctor.org, 247K
Intellihealth.com, 218K

How does the NIH rank among government web domains?

NIH.gov in Global US Civilian Govt Information Space-Relative Rankings by Metric (netScore Sept 03 data)

How does the NLM rank according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index?

The ACSI was developed by U Michigan Business School, American Society for Quality. It uses a well developed methodology with a standardized survey instrument to analyze customer satisfaction. The results of the ACSI may be seen on www.foreseeresults.com/.

Here's a brief summary of the results of the ACSI: