Recognizing that pharmacies may need additional knowledge and assistance to improve their health literacy practices, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has developed four new health literacy tools for pharmacy and a set of curricular tools for pharmacy faculty.

Advancing Pharmacy Health Literacy Practices Through Quality Improvement: Curricular Modules for Faculty is a set of modules to help pharmacy faculty integrate health literacy and health literacy quality improvement into courses, experiential education, and projects for PharmD students and pharmacy residents. The curricular modules can be used for lectures, seminars, laboratory classes, and experiential education. The modules consist of 17 activity guides with 4 accompanying PowerPoint® presentations. Each activity guide includes a list of further resources.

Access the modules here.

The National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Pacific Northwest Region (NN/LM PNR) is pleased to announce a funding opportunity for sites around the region to host the upcoming Medical Library Association (MLA) continuing education webcast Leveraging Mobile Technologies for Health Sciences Libraries on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 from 11 am -12:30 pm Pacific time.

NN/LM PNR will pay MLA webcast registration fees for up to 4 selected sites that agree to promote and host the webcast for colleagues in their area.

Please contact Nikki Dettmar, Education and Assessment Coordinator, at snydern@uw.edu by March 23, 2012 if you are a Pacific Northwest Region Network Member (what does that mean?) interested in hosting the webcast for your institution and your local colleagues. Include a brief description of how you will promote the event in your area, estimated attendance, and confirm that your location can meet the technical requirements of Internet access, a computer with Windows Media Player, and a room to host the webcast.

Site participants will be selected based on geographic location, accessibility, and the potential number of attendees. All applicants will be notified of their application status by March 30, 2012.

PNR will also be hosting the webcast at the University of Washington Health Sciences Library, free registration details will be announced in an upcoming Dragonfly article.

In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you might not get there.”  Most of us plan trips around a desired destination.  You can also plan projects that way: with the intended results in mind.  This workshop will introduce the logic model, a simple planning tool that emphasizes what you want to accomplish, helping you to focus on the outcomes of your health information programs or services.  A well-constructed logic model pulls together a picture of how resources and planned activities will lead to the results you want to achieve.  Logic models aid decision-making about new projects; assist with structuring evaluations of new and ongoing programs; and contribute to developing funding proposals and reports.
(more…)

Part 1: Prevention & Preparendess
Seattle: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 – 9:00am – 4:00pm
Location: Odegaard Undergraduate Library Room 220, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Part 2: Response & Recovery
Seattle: Tuesday, May 8, 2012 – 9:00am – 4:00pm
Location: Odegaard Undergraduate Library Room 220, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

(more…)

Edit: A recording is now available at https://webmeeting.nih.gov/p88458404/

Pillbox, DailyMed, MedlinePlus and more! The National Library of Medicine hosts a suite of drug information resources, each with a different slant. Where to begin?

Come join us on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 1pm Pacific time (Noon Alaska, 2pm Mountain) during our free monthly webcast at http://webmeeting.nih.gov/rendezvous for a session presented by Gail Kouame, PNR Consumer Health Outreach Coordinator where she will help demystify where to go for what type of drug information. Feel free to share any pearls you’ve discovered along the way too!

If you are unable to join us then, we invite you to view a recording of the webcast at the Rendezvous website later.

As part of our Federal agency services regarding electronic and information technology resources being accessible to people with disabilities, closed captioning is available on this and future RML Rendezvous webcasts.

For more information please visit How do I connect to the Rendezvous? to test your computer connection as a Flash update may be needed. We look forward to seeing you at the webcast!

Of recent interest to medical librarians is an article that was published in BMJ regarding search results in PubMed and how evidence from randomized clinical trials is retrieved. Here is some updated information from the National Library of Medicine, Bibliographic Services Division:

Re: Wieland LS, Robinson KA, Dickersin K. Understanding why evidence from randomised clinical trials may not be retrieved from Medline: comparison of
indexed and non-indexed records. BMJ. 2012 Jan 3;344:d7501. doi: 10.1136/bmj.d7501. PubMed PMID: 22214757.

Readers of this article should recognize that the authors assumed no changes took place in the NLM indexing of Randomized Controlled Trial
[publication type]. In fact, NLM has made changes since 2005 that we think affect the conclusions and projections made in the article. These changes
are: (more…)