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Developing a health information infrastructure for Arizona.

Network connectivity is critical in Arizona, where travel distances are great, academic programs dispersed, and health care practitioners often geographically isolated. Accordingly, the University of Arizona (UA) applied for $50,000.00 in National Library of Medicine/National Science Foundation (NLM/NSF) Connections Program funding to promote statewide collaboration in supporting UA's health sciences education and research programs by expanding network connectivity to hospitals and other health-related institutions. The proposal outlined three strategies: Each major nonuniversity teaching hospital would secure and maintain a leased communications line dedicated to network connectivity, and NSF funds would be used to buy some necessary hardward. NSF funds would be used to establish a modern bank for dial-up Internet access by rural practitioners and teaching sites. Co-principal investigators of the project would promote and support the use of this new statewide connectivity and foster its continued expansion. The proposal was based on a conservative philosophy: familiar technologies and, where possible, existing networks and equipment would be used. The proposal was approved, and NSF funds hastened creation of an expanded health information network in Arizona. Once that network was in place, participants moved quickly from managing the mechanics of connectivity to planning for a computing and communications platform with services. Private funds were obtained to help organize the Arizona Health Information Network to direct these expanded services.

Arizona↗

Information needs of naval primary care providers and patients at sea.

OBJECTIVE: To optimally practice medicine, and to live healthy lives, providers and patients need convenient access to authoritative information. The goal of this study was to determine the information needs of naval primary care providers and patients at sea to aid development of a digital health sciences library for naval primary care providers and patients. METHOD: A literature-based needs assessment was conducted from articles identified using MEDLINE searching and U.S. Navy health care information sources. Recurring medical problems/diseases/topics were identified and categorized. RESULTS: Eighty-one articles and books were reviewed and abstracted, representing a broad base of naval medicine. Twenty-one medical and surgical theme areas and 125 medical problems/diseases/topics were recurrently identified. CONCLUSIONS: The common naval medical problems identified are nearly identical to the common medical problems in the general population, have changed little from the 18th century, and were consistent with first-hand information from naval primary care providers.

Databases, Factual↗

Biomedical journal title changes: reasons, trends, and impact.

A study was conducted to document the impact of biomedical journal title changes on medical libraries and to increase awareness of the reasons titles are changed. The study consisted of two parts: a survey of academic health sciences libraries in the United States and Canada and an analysis of title changes from two different years. The survey response rate was 83%. The majority of respondents commented on difficulties in identifying and processing title changes, often resulting in the delay or loss of information. The analysis revealed that a third of title changes were not justified by the journal. The study results substantiate the need to standardize title change reporting by publishers. A standard developed by the National Information Standards Organization requires publishers to conform to standardized practices for notification. This standard precisely reflects the concerns reflected in both the survey and the study of title changes, and librarians are urged to ensure that the standard is implemented by publishers.

Forms and Records Control↗

Information searching in health care: a pilot study.

Although many academic institutions have attempted to incorporate formal instruction in library skills into their curricula, the question as to the best method of conveying the necessary information has been a continual challenge to health care educators. A library skills workshop, which included the distribution of a workbook, was offered to physical therapy and occupational therapy students in a Bachelor of Health Science program with the aim of assisting students to develop skills in library searches and to perform critical appraisals of the literature. Thirty-three students agreed to participate in a study designed to determine its effectiveness: 24 who had volunteered to attend the workshop formed the experimental group, and 9 who did not attend acted as controls. A Library Skills Questionnaire that attempted to measure cognitive and psychomotor skills in retrieving and appraising health care literature was given to all participants prior to, and at the completion of, the two-session workshop. Nine students in the experimental group did not attend the second session and were then termed "drop-outs" for the purpose of the study. The results show that the drop-outs had statistically significant higher knowledge scores (p = less than 0.05) in their post-test scores in comparison with both the students who attended the two sessions and the students in the control group. One explanation for this finding is that the drop-outs may be better self-directed learners who used the workbook to teach themselves.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Canada↗

Developing a culture of lifelong learning in a library environment.

Between 1995 and 1996, the Annette and Irwin Eskind Biomedical Library (EBL) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) radically revised the model of service it provides to the VUMC community. An in-depth training program was developed for librarians, who began to migrate to clinical settings and establish clinical librarianship and information brokerage services beyond the library's walls. To ensure that excellent service would continue within the library, EBL's training program was adapted for library assistants, providing them with access to information about a wide variety of work roles and processes over a four to eight-month training period. Concurrently, customer service areas were reorganized so that any question--whether reference or circulation--could be answered at any of four service points, eliminating the practice of passing customers from person to person between the reference and circulation desks. To provide an incentive for highly trained library assistants to remain at EBL, management and library assistants worked together to redesign the career pathway based on defined stages of achievement, self-directed participation in library-wide projects, and demonstrated commitment to lifelong learning. Education and training were the fundamental principles at the center of all this activity.

Career Mobility↗

Application of a general database manager in a clinical medical librarian program.

The morning report reference file was automated at the Stollerman Library because the manual system was time-intensive to maintain and cumbersome to search. A general database management system (DBMS) was chosen so that it could be used in the future for other data management functions in the library. DBMS features that should be examined before use with a bibliographic application include size limitations, data entry forms, data types, search options, index files, sort options, report generation, query and programming languages, command and/or menu files, file interaction, interface with other software, and documentation. Desired requirements for this application are discussed. It is noted that a general database manager probably will not meet all of the desired requirements. For some bibliographic applications, software specifically designed for bibliographic information management and retrieval should be used. A database for the purposes of searching the morning report reference file and producing a weekly reference list and a yearly index was developed using CONDOR 3. The structure of the database is described, and examples of the reports are given. The system has been in operation since December 1984 and has been well-received by staff and patrons.

Database Management Systems↗

Issues surrounding the administration of a credit course for medical students: survey of US academic health sciences librarians.

OBJECTIVES: For librarians developing a credit course for medical students, the process often involves trial and error. This project identified issues surrounding the administration of a credit course, so that librarians nationally can rely more upon shared knowledge of common practices and less upon trial and error. METHODS: A questionnaire was sent to the education services librarian at each medical school listed in the 2000 AAMC Data Book. A second questionnaire was sent to those librarians who did not return the first one. RESULTS: Of the 125 librarians surveyed, 82 returned the questionnaire. Of those 82, only 11 offered a credit course for medical students, though 19 more were in the process of developing one. Data were gathered on the following aspects of course administration: credit course offerings, course listing, information learned to administer the course, costs associated with the course, relationships with other departments on campus, preparation for teaching and grading, and evaluation of the course. CONCLUSIONS: Because of small number of respondents offering a credit course and institutional variations, making generalizations about issues surrounding the administration of a credit course is difficult. The article closes with a list of recommendations for librarians planning to develop a course.

Curriculum↗

Information-seeking behavior of nursing students and clinical nurses: implications for health sciences librarians.

OBJECTIVES: This research was conducted to provide new insights on clinical nurses' and nursing students' current use of health resources and libraries and deterrents to their retrieval of electronic clinical information, exploring implications from these findings for health sciences librarians. METHODS: Questionnaires, interviews, and observations were used to collect data from twenty-five nursing students and twenty-five clinical nurses. RESULTS: Nursing students and clinical nurses were most likely to rely on colleagues and books for medical information, while other resources they frequently cited included personal digital assistants, electronic journals and books, and drug representatives. Significantly more nursing students than clinical nurses used online databases, including CINAHL and PubMed, to locate health information, and nursing students were more likely than clinical nurses to report performing a database search at least one to five times a week. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Nursing students made more use of all available resources and were better trained than clinical nurses, but both groups lacked database-searching skills. Participants were eager for more patient care information, more database training, and better computer skills; therefore, health sciences librarians have the opportunity to meet the nurses' information needs and improve nurses' clinical information-seeking behavior.

Adult↗

Arizona Health Information Network: the collaborative administration and management of a statewide computing resource for health information.

The need to access current, relevant health care information transcends the boundaries of the library. Many computer-based tools are now available that provide access to this information where and when it is needed. However, the provision of these tools often requires a substantial commitment of resources in the form of staff expertise, computer hardware and software, and user training. The need to access current information is critical for health care providers and students at all points of care regardless of the institution size or location. Unfortunately, the resources necessary to provide access to information may not be equally available at all sites. The Arizona Health Information Network (AZHIN) joins together librarians and information systems specialists from eleven institutions throughout the state in an effort to share computing resources and expertise in order to improve the quality of health care delivery, education and research. This cooperative effort allows each institution to contribute both financially and in the form of staff expertise, based upon its size and available resources. Although the benefits of this type of cooperation seem obvious, in a competitive environment it is necessary for each member to retain independence. To balance cooperation and independence, a framework has been established to enable individual AZHIN member institutions to administer local access to the shared resources.

Academic Medical Centers↗

The Regional Medical Library Grant Program of the National Library of Medicine.

Recognizing the utility of a regional medical library system in improving the availability of existing and future medical library resources in the country, the Congress included provisions for the support of such a system in the Medical Library Assistance Act. Grants will be made to major medical libraries which have the potential to provide supportive services to other libraries within a geographic area encompassing a major fraction of the nation's health professional manpower. Approximately ten of these regional libraries will receive these grants. Support for the system and consequently the extension of the services of the system will of necessity by implemented in a stepwise fashion. The central function of a regional medical library is to provide back-stopping interlibrary loan service and also to provide access to MEDLARS services for the region. Additional services for the region will include traditional reference service, training, surveillance of regional needs, announcement services, support for programs of continuing education for the health professions, and certain central technical processing for the region.

Financing, Government↗

Use of MEDLINE by physicians for clinical problem solving.

OBJECTIVE: To understand the ways in which computer-mediated searching of the biomedical literature affects patient care and other professional activities. Undertaken to determine the ways in which on-line access to the biomedical literature via the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE database "makes a difference" in what physicians do when confronted with a medical problem requiring new or additional information. DESIGN: An adaptation of the Critical Incident Technique used to gather detailed reports of MEDLINE search results that were especially helpful (or not helpful) in carrying out the individual's professional activities. The individual physician was the source of the patient care incident reports. One thousand one hundred fifty-eight reports were systematically analyzed from three different perspectives: (1) why the information was sought; (2) the effect of having (or not having) the needed information on professional decisions and actions; and (3) the outcome of the search. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Telephone interviews were carried out with a purposive sample of 552 physicians, scientists, and other professionals working in a variety of clinical care and other settings. Of these, 65% were direct users of MEDLINE throughout the United States, and 35% had MEDLINE searches conducted for them either at a major health sciences center or in community hospitals. RESULTS: Three comprehensive and detailed inventories that describe the motivation for the searches, how search results affected the actions and decisions of the individual who initiated the search, and how they affected the outcome of the situation that motivated the search. CONCLUSIONS: MEDLINE searches are being carried out by and for physicians to meet a wide diversity of clinical information needs. Physicians report that in situations involving individual patients, rapid access to the biomedical literature via MEDLINE is at times critical to sound patient care and favorably influences patient outcomes.

Data Collection↗

Cost-effectiveness comparison of manual and on-line retrospective bibliographic searching.

A study to compare the cost effectiveness of retrospective manual and on-line bibliographic searching is described. Forty search queries were processed against seven abstracting-indexing publications and the corresponding SDC/ORBIT data bases. Equivalent periods of coverage and searcher skill levels were used for both search models. Separate task times were measured for question analysis, searching, photocopying, shelving, and output distribution. Component costs were calculated for labor, information, reproduction, equipment, physical space, and telecommunications. Results indicate that on-line searching is generally faster, less costly, and more effective than manual searching. However, for certain query/information-source combinations, manual searching may offer some advantages in precision and turn-around time. The results of a number of related studies are reviewed.

California↗

Accessing heterogeneous sources of evidence to answer clinical questions.

The large and rapidly growing number of information sources relevant to health care, and the increasing amounts of new evidence produced by researchers, are improving the access of professionals and students to valuable information. However, seeking and filtering useful, valid information can be still very difficult. An online information system that conducts searches based on individual patient data can have a beneficial influence on the particular patient's outcome and educate the healthcare worker. In this paper, we describe the underlying model for a system that aims to facilitate the search for evidence based on clinicians' needs. This paper reviews studies of information needs of clinicians, describes principles of information retrieval, and examines the role that standardized terminologies can play in the integration between a clinical system and literature resources, as well as in the information retrieval process. The paper also describes a model for a digital library system that supports the integration of clinical systems with online information sources, making use of information available in the electronic medical record to enhance searches and information retrieval. The model builds on several different, previously developed techniques to identify information themes that are relevant to specific clinical data. Using a framework of evidence-based practice, the system generates well-structured questions with the intent of enhancing information retrieval. We believe that by helping clinicians to pose well-structured clinical queries and including in them relevant information from individual patients' medical records, we can enhance information retrieval and thus can improve patient-care.

Computational Biology↗

Perioperative nurses' guide to the library.

Nurses have a professional responsibility, both morally and ethically, to provide the most current and informed patient care possible. Nurses should maintain competence in nursing, exercise informed judgment, participate in activities that contribute to the ongoing development of their profession's body of knowledge, and participate in their profession's efforts to implement and improve standards of nursing care. Nurses should stay current with new information and share this information with coworkers to help disseminate new knowledge. Such practices help advance both the body of knowledge for perioperative nursing and the profession of nursing. Nurses are encouraged to make at least two visits each year to the library. During this time, they can take the opportunity to review current periodicals, recent publications, do a CINAHL search, and browse the Internet. Nurses need to be familiar with library resources, so go to the library. Share your findings with colleagues and students. Acquire the information-seeking skills that will best serve you and your patients in the twenty-first century.

Catalogs, Library↗