National Network of Libraries of Medicine
Pacific Northwest Region
Quarterly Report
February to April 2003
Table of Contents
- Health Professional Access to Information
- Assess Needs of Health Science Librarians
- Network Membership Program
- Document Delivery
- Resource Libraries
- Communication
- Regional Advisory Committee
- Monitor Region's Programs
- User Feedback
- Training Facility
- NLM User/Non-User Needs Assessment
- NLM Grants
- Follow-up with NLM-funded Projects
- Outreach to Health Professionals
- Consumer Health Information Services
- Training to Support Electronic Access to Health Information
- Exhibits and Presentations at Meetings
- Technology Awareness and Integration
- Library Improvement
- Connections
C. ENHANCEMENTS
E. ADMINISTRATION, STAFF AND OTHER
A. NETWORK PROGRAMS
1. Health
Professional Access to Information
The Pacific Northwest Chapter, Medical Library
Association, has decided to explore whether consortial
purchasing of electronic journals and databases could be
part of its functions. A committee has been named to
begin this investigation, with Susan Barnes, Resource
Sharing Coordinator, as a member. This effort would
replace the Washington Medical Library Association
consortial purchasing, which has been regional from the
beginning because more libraries than just those in
Washington were needed to bring more purchasing power.
Participants in the existing WMLA consortial subscription
to 142 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins titles are
enthusiastic about being able to provide access to this
content for their users. They report that the titles are
not only important for their institution's work, but that
providing access to the titles is also excellent public
relations for the libraries in the group.
2. Assess Needs of
Health Science Librarians
Staff attended the annual meeting of the Washington
Medical Librarians Association in April, held on the
Bastyr University campus in Kenmore, WA.
3. Network Membership
Program
In this region as of the end of this quarter:
- 156 Full Members -- ORUTUA, Legacy Meridian Park closed due to budget cuts at its institution and ORUORD, Oregon Health and Science University's Van Hassel Dental Library withdrew from DOCLINE because OHSU has consolidated all its ILL operations into the main library, ORUORE -- another result of budget cuts. A third victim of budget cuts, WAUFGD, Kennewick General Hospital's library, lost its staff and withdrew from DOCLINE, but apparently did not close. (Note that this number does not include WAUPNR, which is counted as a full member by DOCUSER because WAUPNR is active in DOCLINE. However, WAUPNR is the LIBID for the NN/LM PNR office.)
- 151 Affiliate Members -- 2 new this quarter: the two Health Information Libraries that PeaceHealth Medical Group operates in Eugene, OR. Although these are both part of the same institution, they were each made Affiliate Members so that each could have its own DOCUSER record, thereby having its own entry in the MEDLINEplus list of consumer health libraries providing service to local residents.
- 159 DOCLINE participants -- ORUTUA, Legacy Meridian Park closed, and ORUORD and WAUFGD withdrew from DOCLINE as noted above. (3 of these are borrow-only libraries and therefore not full members.) (Note that this number omits two Demo Libraries, WAUXXF and AKUXXK, which are "active" DOCLINE participants but are not real accounts; it also omits WAUPNR, which is an active DOCLINE participant but is the LIBID for the NN/LM PNR office.)
- 14 Public Libraries, one of which is a DOCLINE participant (and therefore a full member).
148 SERHOLD participants. (Note that this number omits
the 2 demonstration libraries, WAUXXF and AKUXXK, from
DOCUSER's list of SERHOLD participants.)
The Directory of Health Science Libraries is being
printed and is due for delivery at the end of May,
2003.
4. Document
Delivery
No activity.
5. Resource
Libraries
Planning began for a meeting with representatives from
the region's Resource Libraries. The meeting will be held
in Seattle in June.
6.
Communication
The winter issue of Dragonfly was closed at the end of
March 2003. There were eight original articles. These
included a new series on consumer health outreach
projects, new EFTS members in our region, and a profile
of Gail Kouame, the PNR Consumer Health Coordinator who
started in January 2003. There was also the second part
of an article by Drexie Malone, a U. of Washington
Information School student, describing a usability study
of participants with visual impairment using the NN/LM
PNR Website.
The March issue of Brainstorm, the City of
Seattle's Community Technology E-zine featured the
EthnoMed Project in the "What's Hot" section: http://seattle.gov/tech/brainstorm.
RML staff members participated in conference call for
DOCLINE Coordinators, Consumer Health Coordinators,
Outreach/Education Coordinators, Tribal Connections, and
the the NN/LM Public Library outreach evaluation
initiative, as well as the general monthly conference
calls.
There were 244 messages on HLIB-NW, the regional
discussion list. Fifty-seven of these messages, or 29%,
were sent from PNRNews, the official NN/LM PNR
announcement list.
7. Regional Advisory
Committee
See the entry under A.5. Resource Libraries.
8. Monitor Region's
Programs
Ms. Kouame assisted with facilitating an RML meeting to
discuss implementation of the NLM initiatives focusing on
Public Libraries and the Public Health workforce.
9. User
Feedback
Attached is an article that appeared in the Clearwater
(ID) Tribune, February 13, 2003, following a
demonstration of MEDLINEplus and PubMed conducted by Ms.
Milgrom. Later in the quarter, Pam McBride, manager of an
IADL-funded project based at Clearwater Valley Memorial
Hospital, forwarded to the RML an e-mail from a physician
who attended the session. Dr. McGrath commented, "The
patient page MEDLINEplus through the NLM is a great
resource in patient care. I probably give patients info
from it 5 -8 times/day. I am glad we got turned onto it
at that meeting."
10. Training
Facility
The training facility was used by the NTCC trainers for
PubMed and Gateway classes on March 11 and 12.
Thirty-eight students participated.
11. NLM User/Nonuser Needs
Assessment
No activity.
12. NLM
Grants
No activity.
13. Follow-up with
NLM-funded Projects
In February, Linda Milgrom, Outreach Coordinator, visited
three outreach sites in north central Idaho, accompanying
Pam McBride, manager of an IADL-funded project in the
Orofino area. Ms. Milgrom presented information about NLM
resources at a local hospital, a community technology
center and at the Clearwater Memorial Public
Library.
Ms. Milgrom and Ms. Kouame visited Ferry County Memorial
Hospital in Republic, WA, while on an outreach trip to
the north east section of the state in March. This small
frontier hospital is completing an Internet Connections
project funded by NLM. During their visit, Ms. Milgrom
and Ms. Kouame presented an overview of MEDLINEplus,
PubMed, and other NLM resources to an audience of
hospital staff, community members, and the local public
librarian.
Ms. Milgrom surveyed the project managers of recently
completed projects funded by the RML to learn if
relationships fostered by outreach projects were
sustained and how they reflected on their experiences. We
were also interested in if we should reconsider
procedures and parameters for regional funding
opportunities. The article can be accessed at http://nnlm.gov/pnr/news/200301/fundingreview.html.
The lessons learned by project participants were:
- Work with the community from the very beginning, including when outcomes are defined.
- Offer noontime trainings, offer lunch, make it fun!
- Equipment purchased for outreach has had lasting utility throughout the institution.
- Short duration of outreach projects is beneficial because activities remain focused. (Quarterly reports also help!)
- Conversely, for community-based work, long time frames are required because active members of the community are often over-committed and group dynamics slow down any project.
- Plan evaluation to measure progress "as you go," rather than trying to wrap it all up at the end.
- Find a good contact person/collaborator, someone with power in partner agency.
- Need more money.
- Don't bite off too much.
These findings will drive a modification of the funding opportunities we offer. We are planning to offer a continuum of support -- from needs assessment prior to a full-fledged project to support to assess follow-up -- as well as funding for new directions (e.g., hardware/software for electronic document delivery and professional development).
| Date | Location | Sponsor | Activity | Focus |
No. of Attendees
|
Staff |
| 02/06/03 | Clearwater, ID | Orofino Public Library | Train | Cons |
3
|
Milgrom |
| 02/06/03 | Clearwater, ID | Clearwater Valley Hospital Library | Train | HP |
12
|
Milgrom |
| 02/06/03 | Idaho County, ID | Kooskia | Train | Cons |
3
|
Milgrom |
| 03/12/03 | Pend Orielle, WA | Stevens County Public Library | Train | HP Cons |
12
|
Milgrom Kouame |
| 03/12/03 | King County, WA | Cross Cultural Health Care Resource Center | Train | HP |
25
|
Alyssa Sampson |
| 03/13/03 | Kettle Falls, WA | Stevens County Public Library | Train | Cons |
5
|
Milgrom Kouame |
| 03/13/03 | Colville, WA | Colville Community Technology Center | Train | Cons |
6
|
Milgrom Kouame |
| 03/13/03 | Onion Creek, WA | Stevens County Public Library | Train | Cons |
1
|
Milgrom Kouame |
| 03/14/03 | Republic, WA | Ferry County Memorial Hospital | Train | HP |
8
|
Milgrom Kouame |
| 03/18/03 | Kitittas County, WA | Kitittas Valley Community Hospital | Train | HP |
6
|
Melanie Jones |
| 03/19/03 | King County, WA | Cross Cultural Health Care Resource Center | Train | HP |
5
|
Alyssa Sampson |
| 03/20/03 | Lapwaii, ID | Nez Perce Tribe Men's Wellness Program | Train | Cons |
30
|
Milgrom |
| 03/24/03 | King County, WA | Cross Cultural Health Care Resource Center | Train | HP |
16
|
Alyssa Sampson |
| 04/01/03 | Thurston County, WA | ESD #113 | Train | HP |
12
|
Milgrom |
| 04/09/03 | Jackson County, Or | SW Oregon AHEC Cyber Health Camp | Train | Cons |
11
|
Brendan Ashby |
| 04/17/03 | Multnomah County, OR | SW Oregon AHEC Cyber Health Camp | Train | Cons |
12
|
Brendan Ashby |
| 04/22/03 | Jackson County, OR | SW Oregon AHEC Cyber Health Camp | Train | Cons |
5
|
Brendan Ashby, |
| 04/22/03 | Jackson County, OR | SW Oregon AHEC Cyber Health Camp | Train | Cons |
7
|
Brendan Ashby |
| TOTAL |
179
|
Focus (targeted program area): HP=health professional, Cons=consumer, TA=technology awareness, LI=library improvement, Conn=connections
1. Outreach to Health
Professionals
Maryanne Blake, Education/Communication Coordinator, was
asked to review and comment on a new Web site for the
Medical Home project based at the University of
Washington. She is also working with the project's staff
to explore ways to promote health information resources
to the Medical Home teams in the state of Washington. On
March 18th Ms. Blake and Ms. Kouame were invited guests
at a Medical Home Project Board of Director's meeting.
Ms. Kouame was able to talk about NLM and the Regional
Medical Library's resources for consumer health
information with meeting attendees. This was advantageous
since the concept of Medical Home relies on both parents
and health professionals working together to care for
children with special health care needs.
Ms. Milgrom taught a hands-on workshop -- Navigating the Web: Internet Resources for School Nurses -- at Educational Service District #113 in Olympia, WA, in April. The invitation to present this workshop came from a nurse who had attended a presentation given by Ms. Milgrom at a school nurses CE class in January.
Mr. Rambo attended the Partners in Information Access for Public Health Professionals steering committee meeting at NLM on March 17.
Mr. Rambo attended the Northwest Regional Public
Health Network steering committee meeting in Seattle on
March 24.
2. Consumer Health
Information Services
Funding for five Electronic Access to Health Information
proposals was awarded effective March 2003. However,
since they had no substantial activity during this
quarter, their individual reports will begin next
quarter. The projects will run for 18 months and will be
monitored by Ms. Kouame.
As part of the Tribal Connections (phase 3) project, Ms. Barnes developed a health information Web site for the Samish tribe in collaboration with the tribal health committee. Priorities that the health committee had established for their tribal health plan provided a framework for a small selection of quality resources that provide useful personal health information. These priority topics include Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Disorders; Cancer; Food and Herbs; Heart Disease, Stroke, and Diabetes; Immunization and Infectious Disease; Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Tobacco; Oral Health; and Respiratory Disease. (The categories are grounded in the Healthy People 2010 areas of emphasis, with additions to accommodate the community's needs.) MEDLINEplus, healthfinder.gov Just for You: American Indian and Alaska Natives, Easy-to-Read Health and Medical Sites, Information for Elders, Nutrition.gov, and Tox Town round out the offerings, providing a large collection of links for those whose needs or curiosity extends beyond the priority topic selections.
Roy Sahali, Tribal Connections project manager and Community Resources Coordinator, provided technology consultation to the Samish tribe for telephone conversion to Voice-Over-IP and network security upgrades.
Also as part of the Tribal Connections (phase 3) project, Ms. Milgrom and Mr. Sahali were invited to give a presentation on "Finding Accurate Health Information" at the Nimiipuu Health Men's Cancer Awareness and Healthy Lifestyles Conference in Lewiston, ID.
Ms. Kouame arranged with a subcontractor to update the HealthInfoquest Web site, a previously funded project designed to provide librarians with pathfinders to health information. The update was completed in April.
Mr. Rambo planned and chaired monthly conference calls
for the Medical Library Association Task Force on Health
Information Literacy.
3. Training to
Support Electronic Access to Health
Information
Ms. Milgrom and Ms. Kouame traveled to the remote
northeast corner of Washington state. They gave
presentations to public librarians, health professionals,
parents of special needs children, and other consumers in
five towns in three counties.
Quarterly reports from six subcontractors are included with this report. These include --
Final quarterly reports for three that officially end in May 2003:
- CyberCamp, (AHEC of SW Oregon)
- Cross Cultural Resource Center (Cross Cultural Health Care Program)
- Finding It on the Internet: Health Access for Elders (OHSU Resource Library subcontract)
Initial quarterly reports for three that began in December 2002 are also attached. Since these three spent the first weeks dealing with administrative matters, the reports this quarter cover Dec 2002-Apr 2003:
- Central Washington REACH (Washington State University)
- X-plain Vietnamese Breast Cancer Tutorial (Ethnomed, Harborview Medical Center)
- Locating Resources for Children at Risk (Oregon Pacific AHEC)
4. Exhibits and
Presentations at Meetings
The RML and regional colleagues exhibited at the
following national and regional meetings. Exhibit reports
are included in the appendix.
| Date | Location | Sponsor | Activity | Focus | No. of Attendees | Staff |
| 03/19/03 | Seattle, WA | Society for Adolescent Medicine | Exhibit | HP |
85
|
Barnes |
| 03/22/03 | San Francisco, CA | American Academy of Dermatology | Exhibit | HP |
192
|
Blake Milgrom Mary Buttner |
| 04/09/03 | Yakima, WA | Washington Library Association | Exhibit | Cons |
40
|
Kouame |
| 05/14/03 | Albany, OR | "Drugs and Dialogue: A view from the Trenches" | Exhibit | HP |
59
|
Karen Bondley |
| 04/23/03 | Corvallis, OR | Oregon Library Association | Exhibit | Cons |
37
|
Rogers |
| 04/23/03 | Butte, MT | Montana Library Association | Exhibit | Cons |
23
|
Bill Kehler |
| TOTAL |
436
|
Focus (targeted program area): HP=health professional, Cons=consumer, TA=technology awareness, LI=library improvement, Conn=connections
National exhibits during the quarter:
- Society of Adolescent Medicine, Seattle WA, Mar 19-22 [Ms. Kouame, Ms. Barnes]
- American Academy of Dermatology, San Francisco CA, Mar 22-25 [Ms. Blake, Ms. Milgrom]
Local/Regional exhibits:
- Washington Library Association, Yakima WA, Apr 9-12 [Gail Kouame]
- Drugs and Dialog: Practical Tools for Pharmacists and Nurses, Albany OR, Apr 11
- Oregon Library Association, Corvallis OR, Apr 24-25 [Liisa Rogers]
- Montana Library Association, Butte MT, Apr 24-25
The Montana Library Assn exhibit was done by Bill Kehler, a network member librarian, funded in part by an RML mini-award. Another network member, Laurel Egan of St. James Hospital in Butte, MT, gave a presentation about MEDLINEplus at the meeting.
The Drugs and Dialog exhibit was done by Karen Bondley of the Oregon Pacific AHEC as part of her RML-funded outreach project.
Ms. Kouame and Ms. Milgrom presented an RML update at
the Washington Medical Library Association annual in
April. They focused on outreach by showing slides and
telling stories from their recent visit to northeast
Washington state.
5. Technology Awareness
and Integration
National exhibits during the quarter:
- Society of Adolescent Medicine, Seattle WA, Mar 19-22 [Ms. Kouame, Ms. Barnes]
- American Academy of Dermatology, San Francisco CA, Mar 22-25 [Ms. Blake, Ms. Milgrom]
Local/Regional exhibits:
- Washington Library Association, Yakima WA, Apr 9-12 [Gail Kouame]
- Drugs and Dialog: Practical Tools for Pharmacists and Nurses, Albany OR, Apr 11
- Oregon Library Association, Corvallis OR, Apr 24-25 [Liisa Rogers]
- Montana Library Association, Butte MT, Apr 24-25
The Montana Library Assn exhibit was done by Bill Kehler, a network member librarian, funded in part by an RML mini-award. Another network member, Laurel Egan of St. James Hospital in Butte, MT, gave a presentation about MEDLINEplus at the meeting.
The Drugs and Dialog exhibit was done by Karen Bondley of the Oregon Pacific AHEC as part of her RML-funded outreach project.
Ms. Kouame and Ms. Milgrom presented an RML update at
the Washington Medical Library Association annual in
April. They focused on outreach by showing slides and
telling stories from their recent visit to northeast
Washington state.
6. Library
Improvement
No activity.
7.
Connections
Mr. Sahali:
- Participated in the winter Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI) conference in Portland, OR, and provided resource information for a e-health grant and support for the Internet Café.
- In March, met with new consumer health coordinator, Gail Koume, and former consumer health librarian, Nancy Press, regarding her participation in the African American Reach and Teach Health ministry project (AARTH); during that time, we also met with new project manager, Ron Burroughs, to arrange training schedules and web support.
- Negotiated with the Makah Tribe (Neah Bay, WA) to place the MedlinePlus icon on their new intranet health portal. This site will be demonstrated at ATNI-sponsored Visioning Conference II in May.
- Participated in field trip to Yakama Tribe and Heritage College (central WA) as part of a tour sponsored by UW Office of Educational Partnership and Learning Technologies.
- In April, consulted with the Camas Institute regarding the Kalispell tribe's technology project, which was made possible by a TOPs grant from the U. S. Department of Commerce.
The Tribal Connections Internet portal -- www.TribalConnections.org -- continues to be developed to provide wellness information, as well as health careers educational opportunities and other resources for and about American Indian and Alaska Native health issues. Pat Chinn-Sloan, fiscal technician in the PNR office, has taken on the bulk of the Web development and maintenance work, working with Mr. Sahali and with occasional consultation from Michael Boer, Technology Coordinator.
Tribal Connections Phase 3: See also relevant entries under B.2. Consumer Health
Ms. Milgrom, Roy Sahali, Community Resources Coordinator, and Joan LaFrance, project evaluator and chronicler, visited the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho. They met with community health staff in Lapwai and Kamiah to finalize plans for making short videos on health and wellness topics starring tribal members and to investigate possibilities for training.
Other Tribal Connections: Mr. Sahali provided support to MCR discussions about the TC Four Corners Project. He provided follow-up consulting with Jacarja Pueblo in New Mexico (was part of Phase 2); a referral from Larry Berry, a systems manger with the Indian Health Service.
Miles White, a UW Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology, was hired on an hourly basis as editor/writer to assist with the development of the Tribal Connections Web site.
D. NN/LM WEB
SERVICE
In February, we migrated three NN/LM servers to a new
network subnet featuring gigabit Ethernet, a tenfold
increase in bandwidth. This project involved changing the
IP numbers of Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie, the three
servers. The new subnet is dedicated to housing servers,
so we believe it will be more stable and secure than
subnets shared with labs and staff workstations. The
increased bandwidth is also beneficial to the
servers.
The Partners in Public Health website was migrated from a folder on nnlm.gov to its own domain name, PHPartners.org. This site is housed on the same NN/LM servers as nnlm.gov and www.tribalconnections.org.
Michael Boer, Technology Coordinator and NN/LM system administrator worked with other technical coordinators to research improvements in the quality and appearance of the nnlm.gov search engine, htdig. The most visible result of this research is the ability to include subsite templates in the results pages. The first of these new templates was implemented for the PHPartners.org site.
Several content management system (CMS) experiments were conducted to explore the potential for offering Weblog (blog) and Wiki services on the nnlm.gov servers. Some of these prototypes will be presented at the May 2003 NN/LM Web Developers Conference.
Mr. Boer continues to participate in the National Outreach Mapping Center Technical Advisory Committee. In addition to weekly conference calls, his role includes maintaining the NOMC.Role_Assignments table. The NOMC.Projects database was frozen and its contents were transferred to NLM for inclusion in the new Outreach and Consumer Health System.
|
NN/LM Web Service: |
|||
|
Year
|
February | March | April |
|
2003
|
71974 | 80390 | 89042 |
|
2002
|
89303 | 97313 | 95795 |
| NN/LM Web Service: /members/reports/Transmitted |
|||
| Year | February | March | April |
| 2003 | 3121 | 3151 | 3661 |
| 2002 | 6450 | 6477 | 6761 |
Dr. Fuller and Mr. Rambo attended the mid-year RML
Directors meeting at the New
York Academy of Medicine in February.
Ms. Milgrom, Ms. Blake and Ms. Kouame taught a session of Dr. Sherrilynne Fuller's U. of Washington Information School health sciences class in February. The topic for the session was consumer health information.
A considerable amount of staff time this quarter was spent testing NLM and NOMC reporting forms and systems and inputting or importing records. Several staff members worked on NLM's Outreach and Consumer Health Project Database and NOMC Mapping Applications. Ms. Milgrom tested and entered Outreach Activities Report Forms data for the entire contract period.
Ms. Kouame attended the March NTCC training on PubMed, the NLM Gateway, and ClinicalTrials.gov at the U. of Washington.
Ms. Kouame and Ms. Milgrom attended the outreach evaluation class -- Measuring the Difference -- taught by Catherine Burroughs and Ms. Blake, at the U. of Washington in Seattle, WA, in February.
Dr. Fuller, Ms. Kouame, and Roy Sahali, Community Resources Coordinator, participated in a faculty field trip to the Yakima Valley (in central Washington) focusing on community partnerships, especially with minority institutions. The tour was sponsored by the University of Washington's Office of Educational Partnerships and Learning Technologies.
Mr. Rambo participated on a University of Washington Librarian Peer Review committee throughout March and April.
