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DragonflyFall 2000 -- Volume 31, Number 4 The newsletter of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Pacific Northwest Region. |
Deciding to develop a library program is a creative opportunity. You may be starting a new type of program or finally getting to something for which you've seen a need for a long time. Either way, you have a fresh slate and the chance to think about the program's goals and what will be done to achieve them.
When setting goals, remember they should be relevant to the audience or community you want to reach. Goals that only serve an agency or organizational agenda are too one-sided. A program's success will rest, in part, on whether you have buy-in from key stakeholders. Planning for goals they find important will make your project relevant, help to ensure sustainability, and encourage participation and partnerships.
To set relevant goals and objectives, go back to the data gathered during the community assessment phase, as described in the previous article of this series. Research conducted in the community assessment phase helped to understand the need and priorities for your program or service -- such as who will be targeted, what problems will be addressed, and what results or outcomes are intended. The goals and objectives you develop will help envision how these needs and problems will be addressed.
Goals are long-range statements describing a desired condition or future. An example project goal might be: Residents of Moran County will have access to and use credible, convenient health information resources for personal health decisions. This goal reflects the mutual priorities of the target audience and outreach staff. For residents, convenient access to health information is key to its actual use. From the perspectives of the outreach staff, getting people to evaluate and select credible resources is an equally important goal.
Goals are far reaching, and do provide an ideal, but they do not specify how they will be achieved. This is where objectives are helpful. Objectives help to define goals by specifying what will be done (the process) and what changes are intended (the outcomes). By constructing measurable objectives, you have defined targets to work toward and ways to measure whether you reach them.
There are two types of measurable objectives-process and outcomes-based. Process objective lists what activities you think will impact your hoped for outcome. For example: The Moran County outreach project will increase awareness of electronic health information resources by conducting a 6-month promotion campaign via printed materials, electronic media, and demonstrations.
An outcomes-based objective states criterion to measure the hoped for result. For example, an outcomes-based objective might be: At least 50% of community center visitors in the last month of the project will have heard about MEDLINEPlus, as measured by an exit survey. Asking community center visitors if they have heard about MEDLINEPlus is a way to measure the targeted outcome to "increase awareness of an electronic health information resource." The objective also lists a criterion of success: 50% of community center visitors.
Thus, by setting a few measurable process and outcome-based objectives, your program has a solid direction for use in planning and evaluation. Keep in mind that goals and objectives can be overwhelming or burdensome if they are not realistic or too numerous. Develop goals as a tool to help prioritize what you most want to achieve. Construct measurable objectives that set selective and realistic targets for what you will do (the process) and accomplish (the outcomes).
A brief note about outcomes: The example provided here is only one of the many outcomes that may result from outreach. Measurable outcomes resulting from outreach could also be gained knowledge, changed attitudes, changed beliefs, developed skill, increased use of health information resources, or increased organizational or community support.
Readers are referred to a newly published guide on outreach planning and evaluation for a fuller discussion of various outcomes and ways to reach and measure them. Measuring the Difference: Guide to Planning and Evaluation Health Information Outreach is available in spiral bound print from the Pacific Northwest Regional Medical Library. Free copies can be obtained by emailing nnlm@u.washington.edu with "evaluation guide" in the subject line, and your name, mailing address, and number of copies needed in the body.
You probably notice that your job includes more and more teaching these days. You teach patient care staff how to use PubMed, you teach everyone how to use the Web for quick reference, you teach the public to use MedlinePlus... Do you want a few canned classes just in case you are called upon to teach a new topic tomorrow?
At the RML we teach a lot, too, and are always creating new presentations using PowerPoint, the Web, or both. You are very welcome to use our training materials to save you time. We keep many of our recent presentations up on our Web site at: http://www.nnlm.nlm.nih.gov/pnr/train/
At the national NN/LM Web site you will find even more ready-to-go presentations, developed by RML staffers and others all over the country: http://www.nnlm.nlm.nih.gov/train/
If you want handouts of good sites, rather than canned presentations, you might find our Internet Demonstration Samplers helpful. We maintain samplers of selected Web resources on AIDS, Native American health, primary care, public health, rural health, and veterinary medicine resources. The last is, fortunately, maintained by Vicki Croft, Library Director of the WSU Veterinary Medicine/Pharmacy Library.
Let us know if you find these pages useful!
Five libraries or agencies in our region received outreach funding this year for health information projects directed toward the public. (As was announced in the Dragonfly, Winter 2000.) The funding was offered by NLM through the RML program, which meant that the lag time from proposal to starting work was short by comparison with ordinary NLM grants.
Already the creative and diligent awardees have made an impact!
We expect that this funding will be offered again in the next year or two; why don't you plan to apply? Maybe the descriptions of the current projects will inspire you to think of needs and solutions in your community.
Town Meetings in Idaho Nancy Griffin, Director of the Idaho Health Sciences Library at ISU, has been holding town meetings on health information for the public and also training sessions for public librarian. Nancy has been visiting towns in Idaho--Salmon, Bear Lake County, Madison, Preston, Rigby, Soda Springs, Downey, Lava, Idaho Falls, Shelley, American Falls, Pocatello, Portneuf, Grace... At each town meeting Nancy conducts group interviews to get an idea of health information needs in the communities and then showcases some good health information sources. While the attendance was a bit low during potato harvest and the opening of hunting season, those communities did gain knowledge of the many resources available even in rural areas.
Nationally famous Web site on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender health concerns Carolyn Halley and Mark Alstead of King County & Seattle Public Health created a unique site that filled a noted need. "It is difficult to find culturally-appropriate health information for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people on topics other than HIV on the Internet," said Dr. Donald Abrams, President of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. "These webpages will help to make important health information accessible to our communities." Check them out for yourself at http://www.metrokc.gov/health/glbt/.
Health Librarians of Distinction at the county fair Joan Hust and Marcy Horner of Kootenai Medical Center's new DeArmond Consumer Library have been promoting health information at every opportunity, even with a booth at the county fair. They have also taught at 21 patient support groups: Cancer Fatigue, Breast Cancer, Cardiac Rehab, Epilepsy, Schizophrenia, Step-parenting, Parenting, Brain Injury Rehab, Diabetes, Alzheimers, PostPartum, Occupational Therapy, AA, and a Stop Smoking class. To get the word out Joan and Marcy are also teaching public librarians about health resources and have created a health portal for Kootenai County. Even the Women's Center and several nursing homes have welcomed Joan and Marcy into their midst. Joan was honored as a "Woman of Distinction" at the Coeur d'Alene Womens' Forum sponsored by the Soroptomists.
Librarians team up with school nurses Dolores Judkins and Jama Chorush of Oregon Health Sciences University Library, are working with the Multnomah Educational Service District to make sure that school nurses have access to the health information they need. School nurses are often the first health professionals in a community to deal with very basic community problems. To start with, Dolores and Jama found out what was needed; then they planned a series of training sessions. Their syllabus is up on the Web at: http://www.ohsu.edu/library/staff/judkinsd/schoolnurse/.
A hospital teams up with other health information providers Rhonda Stone, of Memorial Foundation, Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital, is tapping the expertise of many health information providers in order to create a health web site for all of Yakima County. Rhonda has enlisted the help of Linda Smith, the hospital librarian, and then representatives from the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association, Yakima Valley Regional Library System, Wellness House, Yakima Health District, and Yakima County Geographic Information Services. By combining information strengths, the web site can be much more than any single organization would supply. The site will highlight resources in the Yakima Valley--classes and events, library materials, health organizations and associations.
Produced by NN/LM PNR.
Nancy Press, Editor
Michael Boer, Publication Manager
This publication is funded in whole with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, under Contract No. NO1-LM-1-3516.