by Terri Ottosen, Consumer Health Coordinator, NN/LM, SE/A

The Pew Internet & American Life Project (PIALP) released another series of interesting reports this summer. Published in June, the report, “Social networking sites and our lives,” examines social networking sites in a survey that explored people’s overall social networks and how use of these technologies is related to trust, tolerance, social support, and community and political engagement.[1] Later this summer, several other reports were released which illustrate the profound impact social media sites have had on the lives of the American public. Among the headlines for these reports are startling statistics, 28% of American adults use mobile and social location-based services, 65% of online adults use social networking sites, half of U.S. adults use social networks such as Facebook, and young women are “power users” of social media sites.[2]

As the Consumer Health Coordinator, I found the survey, “Mind the Gap: Peer-to-peer Healthcare,”³ the most fascinating. The rise of the e-patient in health care has been an interest of mine as the burden of managing one’s health has shifted from health professionals to the consumer. Susannah Fox (PIALP) delivered the results of this survey as part of a lecture series at the National Institutes of Health.  These lectures explored a wide range of issues “at the intersection of research, evidence, and clinical practice” ³ where most health consumers find themselves; unsure they are making the best possible health care decisions. As the introduction to the survey summarizes, “peer-to-peer healthcare acknowledges that patients and caregivers know things – about themselves, about each other, about treatments – and they want to share what they know to help other people.”[3]

As health information professionals, many of us are aware of some of these social sites that allow peer-to-peer health connections. One example I use in the Canny Consumer class is PatientsLikeMe.com. This site has over 115,000 patient users with 500+ conditions. Users can share their experiences by searching for others with a condition, symptom or treatment. As the site touts, you have questions about your disease but you also have answers for others, change your life while helping others change theirs.

This new form of participation in the online world is called the “new Zeitgeist of Participation” by the Pew report. This new zeitgeist of participation is transforming health care, political campaigns, news and the entertainment world. They compare peer-to-peer healthcare with the transformation of the music industry by allowing people to share what they know and as a result of two powerful forces: our ancient instinct to seek and share advice about our health and our relatively new ability to do it at Internet speed and scale.[4]

We all will need health information in our lives for ourselves or our friends and families at some point. Health issues are scary and it’s good to know there are places we can go to share our experiences and get help from others with similar issues.

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Larry Ellis, former Director of the Louis Stokes Health Sciences Library passed away this weekend. The viewing and funeral service will be at the Calhoun Funeral Home on Saturday, October 1, 2011 at 3:00pm.

Please see contact information below:

Calhoun Funeral Home and Cremation Service
17010 Lakeshore Boulevard
Cleveland, OH 44110
wecare@calhounfuneral.com
(216) 738-0300

PubMed® Health developed further as a resource for clinical effectiveness research with its August and September 2011 releases. Growing from around 200 items based on systematic reviews to over 5,000, PubMed Health has also begun a collection focused on helping people understand systematic reviews and their results. PubMed Health goals are: helping users find the evidence that could answer their questions about effects of health care and helping them understand what they find. For more information see the full NLM Technical Bulletin article.

Presenter:  Bart Trawick, Ph.D., National Center for Biotechnology Information, NLM

Compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy has been a mandatory condition of NIH funding since April 2008. This presentation will explain the Policy and how it pertains to NIH-funded scientists. The four pathways for investigators to comply with the Policy will be discussed, including a detailed look at manuscript processing via the NIHMS. We will also examine how My Bibliography can help investigators to keep track of compliance with the Policy, and be used as a tool to complete their effort reporting.

To hear this webconference, please go to our list of previously presented web conferences.

October is National Medical Librarian Month and NN/LM SE/A wants to celebrate your successes.  We want to hear your personal stories, anecdotes, and victories advocating for your library.  It is easy to get bogged down in numbers, figures, and algorithms, and miss that rich qualitative information that brings color to a monochrome spreadsheet.

Librarians have long been storytellers, so share your story about how you have been successful in advocating for your library.  Have you “proven your worth” to an administrator? Tell us about it. Have you told people how important libraries are and changed someone’s behavior? Tell us about your experience. Or share someone else’s story. Medical libraries around the region are facing ever larger challenges and we need to work together by sharing our successful strategies to ensure a future for our profession and our institutions. Articles will be published on the NN/LM SE/A SEA Currents blog throughout the month of October.

Authors and subjects of articles will be entered into a competition for a $1000 travel scholarship to MLA 2012 in Seattle, WA. One scholarship will be awarded and will cover travel: flight, hotel, and per diems up to $1000.

We will accept stories until October 24, 2011. The winner will be announced on October 31, 2011.