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Archive for the ‘Health Literacy’ Category
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012
While we promote health literacy for patients and consumers (http://nnlm.gov/outreach/consumer/hlthlit.html), we should also take the opportunity to reach out to the decision makers and planners in our institutions to help them become health literate. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) published a discussion paper earlier this year describing the “Attributes of a Health Literate Organization.” As institutions make decisions about how to help patients become more literate about their health care, librarians can aid in the process by sharing information with various groups in the institution. This can be an excellent opportunity to shine as a crucial player in the healthcare decision making process and also market your library to key stake holders. Please take a moment to read the document from the IOM to see how you can help your partners in health care increase their health literacy. For more information, please contact the RML @ 800-338-7657 (choice number 1 on menu) or dmidyette@hshsl.umaryland.edu.
IOM Link: http://iom.edu/Global/Perspectives/2012/Attributes.aspx
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Tuesday, March 13th, 2012
Interview conducted by Terri Ottosen, Consumer Health Coordinator, NN/LM, SE/A Region
Cynthia Vaughn and Martha Earl, medical librarians at the Preston Medical Library, University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, have been invited and sponsored by both the U.S. Embassy in South Africa and the Library and Information Association in South Africa to teach public librarians how to access the best available health information on behalf of their communities. By making this trip and providing training, they hope to provide families throughout South Africa with valuable education and information so they can make informed decisions about health care and do their best to keep their families healthy.
Cynthia and Martha will conduct numerous workshops throughout South Africa to help community librarians successfully navigate and access the wealth of quality online health resources. The National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) developed the classes, and the workshops are patterned after those utilized in “A Simple Plan Extended,” a project Vaughn and Earl participated in where they taught health information to librarians throughout Tennessee. The schedule includes presentations in major cities such as Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria and Durban, as well as in the areas of KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga.
Before they left, we had a chance to interview the pair. We wish both safe travels and much success! To follow their progress, please read Cynthia’s blog: http://tn2sa.wordpress.com.
Interview Questions for Cynthia Vaughn and Martha Earl
South Africa Outreach Project
How did you become involved in the project that led to the invitation by the U.S. Embassy in South Africa?
As part of the Outreach State Planning group, Rick Wallace at ETSU obtained an NN/LM award to teach in three Tennessee regions. Later, we partnered with him and Nakia Woodward of ETSU in order to extend the outreach. This project was called “A Simple Plan Extended.”
What is your background or story that led you to do the work you do?
Preston Medical Library has been involved with consumer health for over 20 years. Outreach to the communities in rural Tennessee is just a natural part of that mission.
What other outreach experience(s) led you to this project?
Preston Medical Library’s consumer health program began as a partnership with the Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA) and the Knox County Public Library. Martha has participated in the Tennessee Continuing Education Planning Summit organized by the TSLA.
Why are you targeting the public librarians in South Africa for this training? Do you think other groups might benefit as well?
We were asked to target the public librarians! While there, we will also have the chance to meet with several medical librarians and find out more about what kind of partnerships are (or are not) currently in place.
What do you love most about the outreach work you do?
Cynthia: The people. Everyone has a story, and I love meeting new people.
Martha: Consumer health outreach empowers the consumer and the librarian to take care of their own health, and the health of their family and community.
What is the biggest challenge you encounter in your work? What do you think will be the biggest challenge during this trip?
Here, one of the biggest challenges is health literacy, or more specifically, the lack of health literacy. Also, time is a big obstacle … there is just not enough time to do all the outreach desired.
We expect some degree of language/cultural barriers. Another challenge could be issues with technology.
What do you see as the biggest health concerns in the communities you will provide health information training and instruction?
From the preliminary research we’ve done, HIV/AIDS is the top health concern. We think we’ll also be asked about how to find information about at-home treatments for common ailments and prevention of other communicable diseases. Other major issues are maternal/child health and nutritional challenges.
Can you share a success story about the impact of health outreach in your community? Or, what do you anticipate to be the impact of this trip?
Some of the library staff in the Tennessee outreach told us that what they learned in our classes helped them to make smarter decisions about their health and healthcare, as well as for their loved ones.
What advice would you give others who are interested in doing similar health outreach work in their communities?
Go for it! This Tennessee project was funded by an award from NN/LM. Contact them … the librarians there have resources to help you plan and succeed with your goals.
After the project is completed, do you anticipate future collaboration or outreach either locally or internationally?
We have talked about doing outreach again in 2014 or so to the same regions in Tennessee, so the people we trained before can take CE classes to maintain their MLA Consumer Health Information Specialization, as well as train new staff. More international work is always a possibility, but we don’t have any concrete plans as of now.
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Monday, March 12th, 2012
Are you interested in improving the health information literacy of your organization? The Institute for Healthcare Advancement (IHA) invites you to attend the Eleventh Annual Health Literacy Conference, “Operational Solutions to Low Health Literacy,” May 9-11, 2012, at the Hyatt Regency, Irvine (near Orange County/John Wayne airport). MLA credit is offered for attending. There is even a special discount for librarians! Use discount code MLA12 when you register here, and save $50 off the regular low registration rate. Register early to get this special rate – early registration deadline is on or before April 11th.
Questions? Visit the conference website, send an email to mvillaire@iha4health.org or call (562) 690-4001, ext. 202 for more information.
The National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) recognizes that members have a role to play in health literacy and encourages you to attend this conference. The NN/LM and the Medical Library Association will be hosting an exhibit table at the conference to help inform attendees how librarians can support improved health literacy
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Thursday, December 1st, 2011
Health Literacy Basics for Health Sciences Librarians
Presenter: Paula G. Raimondo, MLS, AHIP
Paula Raimondo is the Head of the Liaison and Outreach Services department at the University of Maryland Health Sciences & Human Services Library, in Baltimore, Maryland. She became interested in the ramifications of low health literacy when she began her service as a member of the campus’ Institutional Review Board (IRB). As a nonscientist on the IRB, one of her primary responsibilities is to review the informed consent documents that are part of research protocols. She was concerned that the majority of the potential research participants who would be reading the consent documents would not be able to understand the medical terminology, and therefore not be fully able to understand their role in the protocol.
As a result, Paula developed a workshop, initially called “Health Literacy and Informed Consent”, later changed to “Communicating with Patients”, that she offers on a regular basis to faculty, staff and students on campus. She uses the data she presents in class to raise awareness about the difficulties many patients have in understanding and acting on health information. She is especially keen to persuade healthcare providers to develop clear language communication skills, so that they can share information with all patients, regardless of their literacy level.
Since Paula began teaching the class, around 2005, a lot of research has been done linking low health literacy levels to low health status and disparities in healthcare. We also have more tools at our disposal to aid with health information communication. She believes it is important that healthcare providers understand how to communicate with their patients, and that patients be empowered to talk to their healthcare providers.
This Beyond the SEA session will review health literacy facts, consider effects of low literacy on patient behavior, discuss guidelines for clear health communication, and introduce some literacy evaluation tools.
Time: Noon – 1:00 pm ET
How to get connected:
What do you need to join these conferences?
* A computer (with Flash installed)
* A telephone
How do I connect?
Test your connection: https://webmeeting.nih.gov/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm
Get a quick overview: http://www.adobe.com/go/connectpro_overview
List of previously presented web conferences on subjects such as marketing your library and NN/LM updates.
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Monday, August 29th, 2011
Prepared By: PJ Grier, Outreach/Access Coordinator, NN/LM, SE/A
Various viewpoints abound about the wisdom of using physician shadowing as a learning tool for students. One end of the range supports a student’s need to experience medicine’s practical side[1] while the opposite end holds physicians accountable for ethical obligations to their patients[2]. A middle ground exists, somewhere, because medical schools continue to use the tool as a vehicle to foster student pursuit of the profession. With prior written agreement and patient acceptance a shadowing event must be grounded in patient privacy and confidentiality, and access to patients must be provider supervised at all times[3]. As a medical librarian my purpose is to use shadowing as a gateway for gathering physician-centered data from University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) ambulatory clinics at various stages of Portfolio Ambulatory©[4], an electronic medical record system, implementation. Though physician shadowing has traditionally been used to inspire students to pursue the field of medicine, shadowing may have larger research implications for health science information professionals, faculty and students pursuing a health sciences specialization from a library science program.
As someone with a keen interest in clinical informatics, more specifically the interplay of various terminology standards, sharing a few observations on electronic medical record – systems (EMR-S) and medical librarianship seems worthwhile. Gladly, this is a welcome by-product of recent independent research for certification completion in clinical informatics from Johns Hopkins.
Medical librarians can improve upon an EMR-S’s human computer interaction (HCI) factors, from development, design and implementation standpoints. Because there are many flavors and capabilities of EMR-Ss (ambulatory, hospital, specialty-based, etc.), HCI efforts are usually encoded in the R&D portion of an EMR-S lifecycle and tweaked or customized during end-user implementations and deployments. An example of an HCI issue is “patient mismatches” meaning provider narrative data has been entered in an incorrect patient record. Narrative data is where the physician enters (either through a keyboard, or digital dictation) the patient’s objective/subjective assessment for chief complaint, history, diagnosis, treatment and assessment of tests. Since no two patients are ever alike, it follows that clinical narratives also are not exactly alike. The content of the patient narrative is really the “core” of any EMR-S and should be of interest to medical librarians. If the EMR-S does not have an effective process to counter patient mismatches, it can become a barrier to improved patient quality and safety.
Health science librarians should know about the “info-button”, an HL7 compliant feature which when activated allows an EMR-S user to link-to, or “jump-to” a clinical e-resource for published literature discovery. Future EMR-S developments are to make functions transparent, particularly when they involve billing and reimbursements. Contributing to this push is that ICD-10 clinical documentation will be required by 2013. Here again, the clinical narrative is front and center. While EpicCareÓ[5] employs documentation tools to assist the physician in completing the patient narrative, the narrative’s content still contains mostly unstructured data. While not yet perfected, computer synthesis of unstructured narrative data is essential for billing, revenues/reimbursements as well as analytics including surveillance, research, outcomes, and performance management. In order for successful computer synthesis to occur, it requires the maturation of natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence (AI) and pattern recognition techniques coupled with the integration of medical terminologies (i.e.: SNOMED-CT, LOINC, etc.) and domain thesauri; all of which are supported by behind-the-scenes computer processes that cross-walk, auto-suggest, correlate, and harvest the semantic representations of the physician’s written words in the narrative. This is just to say, that, health science librarians having skills or even a penchant for managing vocabularies, thesauri, and standard terminologies can make professional contributions.
Commercial interests are looking to exploit computer synthesis of the narrative primarily driven by healthcare reform and the need for improved healthcare coding mechanisms. Remember what I said earlier that the “physician narrative should be of interest to librarians?” It is because of another important healthcare opportunity that could ignite the further adoption of NLP techniques in scholarly publishing. Once the developmental science of NLP and it cousins are more perfected, there is every reason for a publisher to want to integrate appropriate electronic literature on a patient’s diagnosis and treatment directly within the EMR-S’s narrative, where it ultimately belongs. Accomplishing this concept is fraught with pitfalls, such as radically changing the publisher-pricing paradigm and possible impacts to health science librarianship, as well. However it is only a matter of time before the developmental science of NLP catches up, thus opening the potential to make published literature discovery more transparent than through an EMR-S’s info-button.
If these topics are interesting, then I invite further exploration in a newly designed class called Informatics for librarians – peeling the onion. The SE/A co-developed class is offered in-person and comes with 3MLA CE upon completion.
[1] Wong KR, Gold, JA. Letter. JAMA. 2011;2114-5.
[2] Kitsis EA. Shining a light on shadowing. JAMA. 2011;1029-30.
[3] University of Washington. (Internet). Application and agreement for shadowing, and/or observation. (cited 2011 Aug 9). Available from http://uwmedicine.washington.edu/Education/MD-Program/Admissions/Documents/Observation-Shadowing-Agreement.pdf.
[4] Portfolio© Ambulatory is the service mark of the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) for its EpicCare Electronic Medical Record system (EMR-S)
[5] EpicCareÓ is copyright of Epic Systems Corporation, 2011
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Thursday, June 30th, 2011
The American Library Association Annual Conference took place in New Orleans from June 23rd through the 28th. Several sessions on literacy (in its many forms) were presented with enthusiastic participation and discussion from attendees. Articles from American Libraries and ALA Cognotes provide overviews and key people to contact for more information:
Robert Wedgewood on Adult Literacy – Video of Interview: http://bit.ly/mrnRl8
Read More! Doctor’s Orders: http://bit.ly/lHHLt4
Working Toward Transliteracy: http://bit.ly/kKxBvt
Trans-what? A Day of Literacies at ALA: http://bit.ly/ktv1KD
DigitalLiteracy.gov: http://bit.ly/ikyvgL
For further reading about the ALA Annual Conference:
ALA Cognotes: http://bit.ly/ly3A83
ALA Annual 2011 site: http://bit.ly/jRud05
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Thursday, June 23rd, 2011
by Terri Ottosen, Consumer Health Coordinator, NN/LM, SEA
The underpinnings of almost everything we do at the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Southeastern Atlantic Region involve health literacy in one way or another. Our classes provide resources to enable health professionals, librarians, consumers and community and faith organizations to assist their clientele to locate and evaluate reliable health information. We also offer various funding opportunities for those wishing to provide health outreach to their institutions and communities. Through our exhibits, we increase awareness of good health information resources from the National Library of Medicine, which can help increase understanding, decrease health literacy barriers and hopefully lead to better health outcomes. We are always striving to offer new opportunities and resources to assist in your outreach efforts. The following are a few new offerings, as well as a few existing ways we can assist you:
(New) Health Literacy Class
Many of you might have taken former Network Access Coordinator, Beth Wescott’s class, “Easy-to-Read Health and Wellness Materials.” Cheryl Rowan, Public Health Coordinator from the South Central Region of NN/LM, has modified and added great new content to that class. The class is now called “Promoting Health Literacy through Easy-to-Read Materials.” It is approved for 4 MLA CE contact hours and is now offered by Terri Ottosen, Consumer Health Coordinator and Nancy Patterson, Community Outreach Coordinator, in the Southeastern Atlantic Region. For class content, please visit: http://nnlm.gov/training/healthliteracy/. To schedule a class, please contact Terri or Nancy.
New Health Literacy Pilot Project Awards
Health literacy is one area of focus in our new contract period, 2011-2016. We will be offering two funding opportunities in Year 1 for health literacy pilot projects. Depending on the types of proposals received and their success, future health literacy awards may be offered. Please watch the SEA funding page for more information when the pilot project awards are announced: http://nnlm.gov/sea/funding.
If you are unfamiliar with the SEA Region’s funding process, a tutorial called the “Wishing Well Series,” is available for funding information from the Region. There are four segments, which cover each stage of the funding and project process. It can be accessed anytime at: http://nnlm.gov/sea/training/wishingwell/index.html
Health Literacy SEAGuide
Recently, the NN/LM SE/A began offering LibGuides for our network members. A new SEAGuide (our name for our LibGuides) has been developed on health literacy. It offers a quick one-stop for health literacy resources, blogs, videos, websites etc. There are now SEAGuides on each state in our region, electronic and personal health records, and more are in the works. As with any of our SEAGuides, please submit comments or your suggestions for additional resources. We always value your input. To see the health literacy SEAGuide, please visit: http://seaguides.hshsl.umaryland.edu/healthliteracy/. To view all SEAGuides, please visit: http://seaguides.hshsl.umaryland.edu/index.php.
Health Literacy Toolkit
The Southeastern Atlantic Region also developed a health literacy toolkit. Originally, this toolkit was handed out during the Mid-Atlantic and Southern Chapter meetings, but is now available electronically on our website. It is updated annually and was last updated in February 2011. This toolkit is an annotated bibliography of helpful resources and readings. To access the toolkit, please visit: http://nnlm.gov/sea/outreach/healthlitkit/index.html
As with all of our offerings, we love hearing from you. If you have any comments, suggestions or input, please contact us.
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Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
Registration is closed for this BeyondtheSEA – a recording of the webinar will be available in a couple of days (6/23/11)
We are sorry that some attendees encountered technical issues on June 7. As a a result, the BeyondtheSEA webinar is being offered on June 23 from 12pm to 1pm ET.
Pre-Registration
Pre-registration is required due to the expected demand in attendance. Please pre-register at our website – http://nnlm.gov/sea/training/register.html Once we receive your registration information, we will send you the access information you will need to join our webinar on June 23. Please email cbecker@hshsl.umaryland.edu if you have any problems registering.
Date: June 23, 2011
Time: Noon – 1 pm ET
Please join a revealing discussion on clinical informatics curriculum, health sciences librarianship and the mixture of both. The panel discussion is a short overview of the “nut and bolts” of clinical informatics, how the domain is integrated in hospital, ambulatory and public health settings and the components of clinical informatics that may be best-suited for professionals having information science skills.
Informatics issues span the complex gamut of patient care. It involves the participation of countless organizations including care delivery, commercial vendors, national/international standards, consultants, contractors, policy institutes, government entities, third-party payers, professional associations to name a few. Informatics issues cover an array of interrelated topics including all forms of health information systems (particularly Electronic Health Records), system standards and architectures, information frameworks, the need for more informaticists in the context of healthcare reform, implementation of meaningful use (and other enabling government policies) and ICD-10, system life cycle management, content integration, system design, user workflows and the pros/cons of various types programming languages. Additionally, you will hear “real-world” perspectives from a student point-of-view; a hospital librarian who is a member of the first cohort of the Hopkins certificate program.
Clinical informatics is not new, is sometimes confused with bioinformatics and is often described as “the intersection of computer science, information science and health sciences”. Beyond that, what does clinical informatics portend for hospital and other health sciences librarians? The discussion aims to be informal and is hoped that librarians will have a better understanding of clinical informatics and their potential part in it. The virtual panel is comprised of a pediatrician, librarian/computer scientist (Johns Hopkins faculty) and another librarian (an informatics student).
Presenters:
Harold Lehmann, MD, PhD - Associate Professor, Health Sciences Informatics and Pediatrics, Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD-Dr. Lehmann, is a professor and board-certified general pediatrician with doctoral training in biomedical informatics. His research area has involved evidence-based medicine and clinical decision making, so he comes to today’s session with much affection for the library community. He has also founded many of Johns Hopkins’ health sciences informatics training opportunities ranging from an undergraduate course, through post-baccalaureate certificates, masters, a new PhD, and post-doctoral training. Along with Nancy Roderer, he is figuring out what the ideal educational experience would be for librarians regarding informatics and looks forward to hearing suggestions from the group.
Nancy Roderer, MLS, AHIP, ACMI – Professor and Director, Health Sciences Informatics and Director of Welch Medical Library, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD- Ms. Roderer is a professor in the Division of Health Sciences Informatics in the School of Medicine with a joint appointment in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Bloomberg School of Public Health. She serves as Director of the Welch Medical Library and Director of the Division of Health Sciences Informatics. Professor Roderer is a graduate of the University of Dayton (Mathematics and Computer Science) and the University of Maryland (Library and Information Services and Computer Science). She has previously pursued her interests in understanding and facilitating information use and in integrated information management through both operational and research activities at Columbia and Yale Universities, including service as Co-Principal Investigator of IAIMS projects at both institutions. Professor Roderer’s research and teaching focuses primarily on the information behavior of health sciences personnel and on developing systems and services to better meet the needs of that community.
Mary Lou Glazer, MLA, AHIP – Chief, Medical Library at Dept. of Veterans Affairs and Adjunct Professor at Dowling College, Northport, New York
Ms. Glazer graduated from Long Island University – C. W. Post with a Bachelors degree in Accounting and from CUNY Queens College for her Masters in Library Science. She is now completing a Clinical Informatics certificate program at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and was a fellow at the National Library of Medicine Bioinformatics Program at Woods Hole, MA. Mary Lou Glazer has been the Chief of the Medical Library at the Northport (NY) VA Medical Center, Department of Veterans Affairs for over four years and also teaches library research at several local colleges.
How to get connected:
What do you need to join these conferences?
* A computer (with Flash installed)
* A telephone
Go to this URL: http://webmeeting.nih.gov/beyondthesea/ and use the code provided to you when your pre-registration was confirmed by the SEA office.
Reasonable accommodations will be provided upon request. If you require special accommodations, please call 410-706-2855.
Test your connection: https://webmeeting.nih.gov/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm
Get a quick overview: http://www.adobe.com/go/connectpro_overview
List of previously presented web conferences on subjects such as marketing your library and NN/LM updates.
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Thursday, January 13th, 2011
(Connecting Middle School Students to Environmental Health Information)
January 10, 2011 – The National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) Specialized Information Services Division announces the launch of the Environmental Health Student Portal (www.kidsenvirohealth.nlm.nih.gov). This Web site introduces middle school students to environmental health science within the context of current middle school science curriculum standards. This newest edition to the family of NLM resources for students is a FREE non-subscription- based Web site that contains links to government and other reviewed and selected sites and provides a safe and reliable environment for teachers and students to study the following topics and their impact on health:
- water pollution
- climate change
- chemicals
- air pollution (coming soon).
Middle school teachers from school systems in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Maine, and the District of Columbia participated in focus groups to determine the need for an environmental health site, the content, including topics and sub-topics covered, and ways in which they can incorporate the use of the Web site into their classrooms. Topics and subtopics highlighted on the Web site come directly from the data collected during this research. The Environmental Health Student Portal allows students to conduct research, play games related to environmental health, locate science fair projects, and view videos. Teachers can use the site to locate links to relevant content and lesson plans from resources like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute of Environmental Health Science.
Visit our new Web site, the Environmental Health Student Portal, at http://www.kidsenvirohealth.nlm.nih.gov, as well as other classroom resources from the National Library of Medicine:
Environmental Health Science/Chemistry
Forensics and Medical Technology
Genetics
General Health Science/Biology
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Thursday, September 30th, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: HHS Press Office
(202) 690-6343
Kaiser Permanente opens access to internal medical terminology to help others meet HHS’ goals for better use of health information technology
Convergent Medical Terminology tools allow clinicians to use familiar language to achieve standard electronic health information exchange
WASHINGTON, DC., September 29, 2010 — Kaiser Permanente today donated its Convergent Medical Terminology (CMT) to the International Healthcare Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO©) for U.S. distribution through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) so that all health care providers—large and small—can benefit from the translation-enabling technology.
(more…)
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