by Stephen Kiyoi, Second Year NLM Associate Fellow
NN/LM Pacific Southwest Region
UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library

During the month of April, 2012, the RML offered a newly developed training series targeting community college librarians. The series, entitled Navigating the Health Information Maze, was offered in a set of four, one-hour webcasts every Tuesday during the month. Twenty-nine librarians from 24 different institutions took advantage of the opportunity to gain expertise in National Library of Medicine resources; including PubMed, MedlinePlus, the NLM Gallery of Mobile Apps and Sites, and Health Information for Special Populations. Additional information about the series and archived training sessions are available from the preceding series website. Outreach to community colleges is a major NN/LM initiative for the coming year. (more…)

by Naomi C. Broering, MLS, MA, AHIP; Gregory A. Chauncey, MBA; Stacy Gomes, PhD.
Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, San Diego, CA

The Pacific College of Oriental Medicine’s (PCOM) Library received Major Outreach Award funding from the RML in 2009, for an 18-month project that ended in April 2011. The overall project goal was to promote easy-to-use Web informatics access to NLM and NIH online health information resources for consumers and health professionals. This gargantuan, but fun task involved networking and collaborating with an eight-member team of San Diego public libraries, faith-based organizations, a community center, and affiliated clinics, to implement an instructional program with a variety of teaching alternatives targeting an ethnically diverse community. We taught hands-on workshops, developed electronic tutorials, held live web-based sessions that were videotaped, produced DVDs, and conducted a series of Webinars for health care practitioners. In addition, we made web page enhancements, such as adding an A to Z database arrangement, new online tutorials of PubMed and MedlinePlus, and implementation of Web 2.0 features used for instructional training of NLM resources. Examples of links for tutorials and databases are on the PCOM web site. It was an ambitious project, but extremely rewarding! (more…)

Introduction

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) recently announced MedlinePlus Connect (http://medlineplus.gov/connect), a free service that allows electronic health records (EHR) systems to link patients and consumers to MedlinePlus (http://medlineplus.gov), NLM’s authoritative up-to-date health information resource for patients, families and health care providers. MedlinePlus provides information about conditions and disorders, medications, and health and wellness. (more…)

September 15 through October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month. Have you’ve done anything to celebrate? To commemorate the month, let’s review some authoritative health resources aimed towards the Hispanic population. Feel free to share this information with your community partners all year round! (more…)

“Meaningful use” is a phrase that is gaining national momentum as national healthcare reform moves forward. But what is meaningful use, anyway? No, it’s not evidence based health care, although there is a logical tone to that analogy. Instead, meaningful use refers to using electronic health records (EHRs) to achieve improvements in health care. (more…)