NLM now provides an e-mail notification service, PubMed Alerts, that will notify subscribers of major system problems with PubMed; its two companion databases, MeSH and Journals; and the NLM Catalog. If these databases have a significant service disruption affecting all or most users for a considerable amount of time, an alert will be issued. Alerts providing update and resolution information about a problem will be sent if warranted. This is an announcement-only e-mail notification service that will be most useful for heavy users of PubMed. (It does not include other services/databases, e.g., LinkOut, PubMed Central.) Alerts will be sent out by NLM Monday through Friday, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm Eastern Time (except Federal holidays). To subscribe, send an e-mail to listserv@list.nih.gov. Leave the subject line blank and enter SUBSCRIBE pubmed-alerts your name in the body of the message, e.g., SUBSCRIBE pubmed-alerts jane doe. For more LISTSERV commands, see http://www.nlm.nih.gov/listserv/commands.html.

The National Library of Medicine has released the NLM Drug Information Portal. The site is at http://druginfo.nlm.nih.gov. The NLM Drug Information Portal gives the public, healthcare professionals, and researchers a gateway to current, accurate and understandable drug information from the National Library of Medicine and other key government agencies.

More than 12,000 drug records are available for searching. The search interface is straightforward, requiring only a drug name as a search term, and successful searching is enhanced by the assistance of a spellchecker. Information buttons and balloon pop-ups guide the user by providing helpful hints or a description of the resource and links to the source website.

http://foundation.acponline.org/hl/hcc2007.htm

On Wednesday, November 28, 2007, the American College of Physicians Foundation sponsored its 6th annual National Health Communication Conference, “Advances in Health Literacy” at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. This year’s conference challenged researchers, clinicians, and educators to “present evidence-based solutions to the problems associated with low health literacy and discuss meaningful innovations to improve health outcomes and service” (Introductions and Opening Remarks by Harold J. Fallon, MD, MACP http://foundation.acponline.org/files/hcc2007/fallon07.pdf). Accessed 12/4/2007.

The conference forums, mainly presented as roundtable discussions, produced thoughtful solutions to the difficult problem of increasing health literacy. One such solution, presented by Alastair J. J. Wood in “Simplifying Medication Scheduling – Can We Confuse Patients Less?” is to develop a universal medication schedule on pill bottles whenever possible (there are always exceptions). According to Wood, medications require that people “know what to take, how many pills to take, and when to take them” (http://foundation.acponline.org/files/hcc2007/wood07.pdf Accessed 12/4/2007. Presentation slide 2). This universal medication schedule would show people what to take, how many to take, and when to take them in a picture format such as below:

Although the conference was directed towards physicians, nurses, pharmacists, educators, patient education material writers, librarians, and others working to increase health literacy also attended. The most notable presentation stated the importance of partnerships. Elyse Barbell Rudolph, Executive Director, New York City’s Literacy Assistance Center, shared her experience with a local hospital. The literacy assistance center and the hospital partnered with each other to increase health literacy. After the literacy center staff trained the health professionals to be clear and speak in plain language, the literacy center asked the hospital health professionals to speak to a basic ESL class at the literacy center about their jobs and responsibilities as health care providers. After the health professionals spoke with the class, the class on a separate occasion went to the hospital to tour the relevant facilities (emergency room, maternity ward, etc.) and ask questions. The class participants then participated in a teach-back session with their classmates in hopes of increasing their knowledge and expectations of and comfort with the health care system in the United States. Barbell Rudolph demonstrated that the partnerships helped both the students and the health professionals. She states,

Partnerships have helped adult educators to “contextualize” the curriculum by using real life material (e.g. registration forms)…[and] demystify the health care system through visits to health care facilities…[and] partnerships have helped demonstrate the gap between what doctors and other health care professionals and administrators think they have communicated and what patients have understood…[and] demonstrate that clinical communication can be a barrier, along with educational deficits of patients (Literacy Community Centers and Health Literacy, Elyse Barbell Rudolph, http://foundation.acponline.org/files/hcc2007/rudolph07.pdf Accessed 12/4/2007. Presentation slides 8 and 9).

The American College of Physicians Foundation 6th annual National Health Communication Conference, “Advances in Health Literacy” was useful and informative. The participants heard from researchers, clinicians, and educators and gained new knowledge and even took home the new easy-to-read American College of Physicians Foundation Living with Diabetes, an Everyday Guide for You and Your Family. This guide has photographs and stories of real people who have diabetes and focuses on the “need to know and do vs. the nice to know” (Terry Davis, http://foundation.acponline.org/files/hcc2007/davis07.pdf Accessed 12/4/2007. Presentation slide 3).

For fuller information on the conference, health literacy issues, and the call for submissions for the November 19, 2008 conference, please see http://foundation.acponline.org/. Hopefully there will be librarians presenting on their partnerships at the 2008 conference.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/so07/so07_catalog_limits.html
by Sharon Willis, NLM Tech Bull. 2007 Sep-Oct; 358):e3.

An updated NLM Catalog Limits page debuted on October 3, 2007. The NLM Catalog Limits page was redesigned with an improved interface to limit searches by languages, publication types, dates and other parameters. Click the Limits tab to display the Limits page.

Enhancements include new limits such as “Links to full text” and the ability to choose one or more selections under categories such as Languages or Publication Types.

The new Limits page (partially shown).

For a fuller explanation with examples, see: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/so07/so07_catalog_limits.html

The National network office of the National Library of Medicine is pleased to announce the National Medical Librarians Month 2007 featured librarians:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/lo/profiles07/ for the nation
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/lo/profiles07/sea.html for the SE/A Region

• Disaster Planning for Health Sciences Libraries
• MaFlo’s Health & Awareness Team
• NC Health Info Military & Families Health Collection
• Eastern Shore Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Teen Health Initiative

• A Rack of Mental Health! Set up a rack of materials that cover the breadth of psychological issues- stress and anger management, common mental health problems, and suicide prevention. Change the materials weekly. Consider a different focus each week. Place the resources and materials in high traffic and visibility areas- such as the cafeterias, fitness/gym, exits and entrances, phones, gathering areas.

• Invite the local family support agencies. Call on Pastors, Rabbis, Imams and or VA mental health professionals to give a talk on positive mental health, suicide prevention, managing stress, controlling anger or other relevant topics for your community. Solicit staff with a reputation of effective stress control skills to give a brief talk/testimonial on their personal and professional strategies.

• Establish and promote regular stress management time and space for October. This may be work out and fitness time, reflection time, or wellness breaks with sound or DVDs.

• Encourage everyone to have a “mental health tune up”! Promote use of web based programs and tip sheets like:

  • After the Disaster: A Children’s Mental Health Checklist; http://www.fema.gov/kids/tch_mntl.htm checklist to assess a child’s mental health status, following a disaster or traumatic experience

  • Suicide Warning Signs;
    http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/publications/allpubs/walletcard/engwalletcard.asp

  • Choose among SAMHSA Model Programs for a Health Workplace, outlined at
    http://www.modelprograms.samhsa.gov/pdfs/model/Healthy.pdf.

• Assemble a Stress Management/Mental Health Display! Supply brochures: Circle Breathing
  http://www-nehc.med.navy.mil/downloads/hp/CircleBreathing.pdf
  Stress: Cooping with Everyday Problems http://www1.nmha.org/infoctr/factsheets/41.cfm
  Pacer Center’s Kids Against Bullying
  http://www.pacerkidsagainstbullying.org/?gclid=CMO8_LqRrY4CFSasGgodIiUhaA

• Learn more at:

  • American Psychological Association - http://www.apa.org/
  • Maternal and Child Health Library Knowledge Path: Healthy Social and Emotional Development in Children and Adolescents -http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/kp_Mental_Healthy.html.
  • Maternal and Child Health Library: Knowledge Path: Mental Problems and Disorders in Children and Adolescents - http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/kp_Mental_Conditions.html.
  • Medline Plus - http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/stress.html
  • National Institute of Mental Health - http://www.nimh.nih.gov/
  • National Mental Health Association - http://www.nmha.org/
  • Navy Suicide Prevention Program - http://www.npc.navy.mil/CommandSupport/SuicidePrevention/
  • Marine Corps Suicide Prevention Program - http://www.usmc-mccs.org/suicideprevent/
  • Veterans Health Administration’s Mental Health Strategic Plan Initiatives for Suicide Prevention http://www.va.gov/oig/54/reports/VAOIG-06-03706-126.pdf

NLM has released the “What’s New on MedlinePlus” page available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/whatsnew.html .

Visit the page to stay up to date on new MedlinePlus topics, podcasts, featured sites and new issues of the NIH MedlinePlus Magazine. The “What’s New” items will display for three weeks and are also available through an RSS feed. The “What’s New on MedlinePlus” page and corresponding RSS feed are available in both English and Spanish.

This page and RSS feed compliment the already-available MedlinePlus Health News RSS, which delivers press announcements and HealthDay news stories. The News RSS is available in both English and Spanish. You can access the What’s New on MedlinePlus RSS and the MedlinePlus Health News RSS from the E-mail Lists and RSS Feeds pages at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/listserv.html .

A message from Stuart J. Nelson, MD, Head, Medical Subject Headings Section, National Library of Medicine:

The National Library of Medicine has decided to discontinue the printing of the Index Medicus Supplement, sometimes known as the Black and White MeSH. We have received a great number of comments on this proposal, and are grateful for the input. Overall, it appears that our impression that few would be inconvenienced by the discontinuation of the printed edition was correct. Given the high cost of printing even a few copies of the book, we do not see the benefit as justifying the expense. For those wishing a souvenir copy, the 2007 MeSH will continue to be available from the Government Printing Office for another 14 months.

In response to concerns expressed by several individuals, we plan to make available a set of PDF files containing the various hierarchies.

These will be formatted in such a way as to make printing them on 81/2 by 11 inch paper feasible, enabling a user to print out and review an entire tree easily.

We encourage all to avail themselves of the resources available at www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh. There is a considerable amount of printable introductory material, information about how we update MEDLINE, as well as links to downloadable files and the MeSH browser. The PDF files of the trees will also be available there.

The current MeSH files are available for download, in one of three different formats. Furthermore, the browser at the MeSH website provides ready access to the current version of MeSH. The browser supports partial word searches of three letters or more, and provides many links between related terms. As is our practice, all of these services and files will remain free of charge.
Once again, we wish to express our gratitude for the many comments received.

Stuart J. Nelson, MD
Head, Medical Subject Headings Section

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/dirlinfs.html
DIRLINE, Directory of Information Resources Online, is the National Library of Medicine’s online database containing location and descriptive information about a wide variety of information resources including organizations, research resources, projects, and databases concerned with health and biomedicine.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/toxmysteryfs.html
ToxMystery (http://toxmystery.nlm.nih.gov) is the National Library of Medicine’s new interactive learning site, designed to help children age 7 to 10 find clues about toxic substances that can lurk in the home. With lively animations, surprising sound effects and lots of positive reinforcement, ToxMystery provides a fun, game-like experience, while teaching important lessons about potential environmental health hazards.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/toxseekfs.html
ToxSeek® is a free meta-search engine enabling users to search across diverse biomedical and environmental health resources and provides a method for efficiently locating information resources on topics related to toxicology and environmental health.

Just a reminder that the funding deadline for the following awards is August 24:

• Library Improvement Award
• Express Follow-Up Awards
• Express Planning Awards
• Express Katrina/Delta Awards
• Express Welcome Awards

All applicants must be SE/A Network members to apply.