REMM (Radiation Emergency Medical Management) has released major new versions of the REMM website and Mobile REMM app. The Mobile REMM app is available for the iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile. It is strongly suggested that any previous versions are updated to REMM 1.5.0.

What’s new on REMM 1.5.0?

• Updated decorporation recommendations using new NCRP Report 161
  • Isotopes of interest
  • Countermeasures for internal contamination
• Multimedia Page: many new assets
• Where to send bioassay specimens
  • Contamination
  • Exposure and Contamination
• Three tables comparing biodosimetry assays
• Updated content and references on many pages
  • Acute Radiation Syndrome
  • Hematopoietic Subsyndrome
  • Cutaneous Radiation Syndrome
  • Nuclear Reactor Incidents
  • Nuclear Detonation: Weapons, Improvised Nuclear Devices
  • Triage Guidelines
  • Preparedness and Response Planning
  • Recovery / Resilience after an Incident
  • Public Information Officers
  • Hospital Staff
  • At-risk / Special Needs Populations
  • Biodosimetry Reference List
• Discovering an Incident: new content at bottom of page
  • Key definitions: incident vs. event: US NIMS/ICS nomenclature
  • International Nuclear and Radiological Event (Severity) Scale (INES): international nomenclature
• USASearch is the new site search engine for REMM
  • Powered by BING, it searches only the REMM web site.

A new effort to help teens quit smoking will use one of today’s teen’s most constant companions — the mobile phone. Developed by smoking cessation experts, SmokefreeTXT is a free text message cessation service that provides 24/7 encouragement, advice, and tips to teens trying to quit smoking. The initiative is led by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

Once they sign up, teens receive text messages timed according to their selected quit date. Following their quit date, they will continue receiving texts for up to six weeks — a critical piece of the SmokefreeTXT service, as research shows that cessation support continues to be important beyond the first few weeks of quitting. Teens can sign up online at teen.smokefree.gov or text QUIT to iQUIT (47848).

Nearly 20 percent of teens are current smokers, and most will continue smoking into adulthood unless efforts are made to help them quit now. Many teens want to quit, but few use evidence-based cessation resources to support their quit attempts. By connecting with teen smokers on their mobile phones, NCI hopes to more effectively engage young people in quitting with proven cessation tools and strategies.

SmokefreeTXT is one of the core features of the new Smokefree Teen initiative, an extension of NCI’s smoking cessation website, smokefree.gov. Along with SmokefreeTXT, Smokefree Teen offers several social media pages to connect teens with cessation tools. In January 2012, Smokefree Teen will launch a free smartphone application, QuitSTART — an interactive quit guide for teens that delivers cessation and mood management tips, tracks cravings, and monitors quit attempts.

To learn more about Smokefree Teen and SmokefreeTXT, visit http://teen.smokefree.gov/.

After it was announced in NN/LM PSR NewsBits  about a year ago, more than 90 libraries worldwide requested library-specific URLs for PubMed for Handhelds (PubMed4Hh). With the availability of smartphones growing rapidly, the PubMed for Handhelds team attempted to create an App for iOS devices (iPhone/iPad/iPod) but ran into some difficulty because of the many pre- and post-search algorithms in PubMed4Hh and also because of library-specific links.

We thought that the next best thing would be to add an icon to the Home screen and Dock to make it work like an App (a Web App). Instructions on how to add a PubMed4Hh icon to iOS devices are here. The URL above is also visible in PubMed4Hh’s index page (http://pubmedhh.nlm.nih.gov; or short URL http://go.usa.gov/xFb) to iOS and mobile devices but will not display in desktop and laptop browsers.

For Android devices, it is just a matter of adding a bookmark. NLM is currently creating specific instructions for Android devices that will be posted soon.

I hope this information will be useful for NN/LM librarians and their patrons.

from the PubMed for Handhelds team

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s (ONC) Office of the Chief Privacy Officer plans to perform a project using a qualitative data collection approach to obtain in-depth information from mHealth users regarding privacy and security concerns with this technology and perspectives on potential safeguards. mHealth refers to the use of mobile devices to communicate health information, and includes text messaging, email accessibility on the device, Skype, or the use of applications downloaded to the device.

A series of focus groups will be held in a variety of geographic regions to look at the attitudes and perspectives of individuals across different populations. For more information on this and other mHealth initiatives at HHS, please visit http://www.hhs.gov/open/initiatives/mhealth/projects.html, under “Privacy/Security Research.” For more information, or contact Joy Pritts, JD.

Based on the success of last spring’s event, the IOM and NAE are sponsoring the 2nd annual Go Viral to Improve Health: Health Data Collegiate Challenge. Working in interdisciplinary teams that meld technological skills with health knowledge, college students can generate powerful apps to improve health for individuals and communities. A video of last year’s first-place winners presenting their app, Sleep Bot, at the 2011 Health Data Initiative Forum is available online.

IOM and NAE need your help in reaching out to students about the challenge. Information about eligibility, judging criteria, and registration is available on the IOM website and Facebook page. A downloadable and printable flyer is available to help spread the message about this year’s student challenge. You are encouraged to help get the word out by “liking” the Go Viral to Improve Health Facebook page and forwarding information about the challenge to faculty and students who may be interested in participating. This year, a total of $10,000 in prizes will be available to the student teams who develop the best new health apps. Team registration is open until February 10, 2012.

To help teams get started, the National Library of Medicine provides API (Application Programming Interface), a set of routines that an application uses to request and carry out lower-level services performed by a computer’s operating system, for many of its resources and databases. The NLM Show Off Your Apps challenge utilized NLM API to create to create innovative software applications that use the Library’s vast collection of biomedical data, including downloadable data sets, application programming interfaces (APIs).

In March, PubMed Mobile Beta was released. PubMed Mobile provides a simplified mobile friendly web interface to access PubMed. PubMed Mobile includes the same basic search functionality and content as Standard PubMed; that is, all search terms and fields work similarly.

As of last week, any reference to “Beta” is gone, and users visiting PubMed.gov on a handheld device will be redirected to the PubMed Mobile website.

In addition, the PubMed Mobile eBoard slide has been updated to reflect this change and is available for re-download.

The first release of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders (WISER) for Android is now available.

This release allows users to:

• Leverage WISER’s full database of chemical, biological, and radiological substances from an Android device and search WISER’s full list of known substances
• Take advantage of WISER’s new simplified search: search by name or ID using a single, integrated search field
• Browse WISER substances by category
• Track recent substance history.

WISER for Android can be downloaded and installed directly from Android’s Marketplace – https://market.android.com/details?id=gov.nih.nlm.wiser

Look for new enhancements to the content and functionality of both WISER for iPhone/iPod touch and WISER for Android in the coming months, including the addition of WISER’s popular help identify feature and access to WISER’s suite of tools.

Conozca las preguntas, (Know the Questions) a new, multimedia Spanish-language campaign was announced by the Department of Health & Human Services’ (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Ad Council, encourages Hispanics to get more involved in their health care and to talk with their doctors about their medical concerns. The national public service advertising campaign, which features television, radio, print and Web ads, offers tips to help Hispanics prepare for medical appointments by thinking ahead of time about questions to ask their doctors during medical appointments. The PSAs direct audiences to visit AHRQ’s Web site at http://www.ahrq.gov/preguntas/ where they can find tips and other important health information in Spanish.

AHRQ research shows that Hispanics tend to seek medical treatment advice from friends, co-workers and even casual acquaintances rather than going to the doctor unless they are very sick. Some Hispanics report avoiding asking doctors questions out of respect or because they feel intimidated or embarrassed. AHRQ data show that 47 percent of adult Hispanics reported not having seen a doctor in 2008, compared with 29 percent of adult non-Hispanics. This included 37 percent of insured Hispanics ages 18 to 64, compared with 29 percent of insured non-Hispanics, as well as 15 percent of older Hispanics versus 10 percent of non-Hispanic seniors.

AHRQ and the Ad Council also will be implementing a mobile marketing program to further engage the Hispanic community in the campaign messages. A mobile version (WAP) of the website will be developed and users will have the opportunity to opt in to receive biweekly text message alerts for tips on talking with health care providers, getting prescriptions and medical tests, and the benefits of getting more involved in their health care. Mobile users can text 80676/Preguntas to opt in to the program. For more information about the Conozca las preguntas Campaign, please visit the AHRQ press release and the Conozca las preguntas website.

The National Library of Medicine has released Chemical Hazards Emergency Medical Management (CHEMM)!

Chemical emergencies are high risk events that require first responders to quickly make a series of complex decisions to minimize the risk of injury to their patients and themselves. The tools in CHEMM provide a comprehensive resource to help responders make safer decisions and provide them with the right information when it is needed most. CHEMM enables first responders and other healthcare providers and planners to plan for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the effects of mass-casualty incidents involving accidental or terrorist chemical releases.

CHEMM enhances and builds on the successes of the suite of Emergency Medical Management tools that began with the Radiation Emergency Medical Management (REMM) Web-based resource, which provides information for health care providers about clinical diagnosis and treatment of radiation and other injuries anticipated following radiological and nuclear emergencies. CHEMM is a Web-based resource that is downloadable in advance so that it is available during an event if the Internet is not accessible. It provides evidence-based information and guidance on a wide variety of topics, including quick chemical identification, acute patient care guidelines, and initial event activities.

CHEMM and REMM are the result of collaborative efforts between the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) – Office of Preparedness and Emergency Operations (OPEO), the National Library of Medicine – Division of Specialized Information Services (NLM/SIS), as well as many medical, emergency response, toxicology, industrial hygiene, and other experts. For more information see: CHEMM Web-Based Resource Enhances Planning and Response to Chemical Emergencies.

–NLM Technical Bulletin

Need to know more about drugs and breastfeeding? LactMed, part of the National Library of Medicine’s Toxicology Data Network (TOXNET), is a database of drugs and other chemicals to which breastfeeding mothers may be exposed. It includes information on the levels of such substances in breast milk and infant blood, and the possible adverse effects in the nursing infant. Suggested therapeutic alternatives are provided to those drugs where appropriate. All data are derived from the scientific literature and fully referenced. Data are organized into substance-specific records, which provide a summary of the pertinent reported information.

LactMed is available online at http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?LACT and is now available on your mobile device! The free LactMed App for iPhone/iPod Touch and Android can be downloaded at http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/help/lactmedapp.htm.

For an introduction on accessing drug information on LactMed, MedlinePlus, and PubMed, you can view our recording of Midday at the Oasis: Not the Oscars, but MedlinePlus!