http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/medsun/

MedSun provides a representative profile of reports from healthcare facilities, such as hospitals. MedSun improves understanding of medical device problems so FDA, healthcare facilities, clinicians, and manufacturers can better address safety concerns. Over 350 health care facilities, primarily hospitals, participate in the network. MedSun is unique because it educates health care professionals about the importance of monitoring, being aware of, and reporting device related problems to FDA and the manufacturer.

MedSun also ensures that new safety information is rapidly communicated to the medical community thereby promoting patient safety.

The MedSun Subnetworks

These subnetworks are designed to collect and share information about actual and potential adverse events from specific clinical areas of MedSun facilities using high-risk products.

The content that FDA produces is not copyrighted. Stories can be reprinted without permission and copies can be downloaded and displayed free of charge. Editors wishing to use MedSun’s material in publication are asked to please acknowledge MedSun as the source and send copies of stories to medsun@s-3.com.

Subscribe to Email Updates at https://service.govdelivery.com/ service/subscribe.html?code=USFDA_65

For questions contact Tina Powell at 1-800-859-1292 or email at: medsun@s-3.com

http://www.phprep.org/2009/?CFID=2487407& CFTOKEN=48417005

Public health preparedness professionals from across the nation will share innovative best practices, tools, and resources to help you build and sustain your community’s capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a public health emergency or disaster.

The Summit will be held at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina.

Phone: 866-716-8130 • Fax: (619) 692-2337

Special Offers Reservations (866)-716-8130

Contact Information: Call the registration department at 703-964-1240 or email PHPreg@conferencemanagers.com

National Center for Health Statistics’ (NCHS) Health Data Interactive HDI Web Site
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/hdi/whatsnewhealth_data_interactive.htm The National Center for Health Statistics has combined two interactive, web-based applications, Health Data for All Ages and Trends in Health and Aging, to create a new site, Health Data Interactive. Most of the table topics and many of the previous tables will continue to be featured on HDI. Where possible, age groups have been expanded and the depth of demographic detail increased. In some cases, NCHS offers two tables on the same topic, with one table featuring detailed data on subpopulations and another table providing longer trend data.

Over all, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hdi.htm presents tables with national health statistics for infants, children, adolescents, adults, and older adults. The tables can be customized by age, gender, race/ethnicity, and geographic location to explore different trends and patterns.

Table topics include:

• Health and functional status
• Health care use and expenditures
• Health conditions
• Health insurance and access
• Mortality and life expectancy
• Pregnancy and birth
• Risk factors and disease prevention

MedlinePlus’ drug information content provider - the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) - has recently changed its product name from MedMaster to “AHFS® Consumer Medication Information”. As a result, there are changes to URLs of individual drug monographs on MedlinePlus, together with the September updates. We are replacing /medmaster/ with /meds/. For example,

Old URL:

• http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/medmaster/a682563.html
• http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/spanish/druginfo/medmaster/a682563-es.html

New URL:

• http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a682563.html
• http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/spanish/druginfo/meds/a682563-es.html

Old English URL http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/medmaster/a682563.html will redirect to http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginformation.html

Old Spanish URLs,http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/spanish/druginfo/medmaster/a682563-es.html will redirect to http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/spanish/druginformation.html.

Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce http://phpartners.org has released two new topic pages: Nutrition and Workforce Development.

• The Nutrition topic page includes links to government, professional and research organizations that focus nutrition issues; grants and funding opportunities; legislation and health policy issues related to nutrition; published literature and research reports; and nutrition promotion, education and information resources.
• The Workforce Development page provides links on public health workforce development activities and resources including education and training opportunities; legislative action; professional meetings, summits, councils, and conferences; new workers development programs; tools and resources on public health workforce issues; and workforce projects and research reports.

To keep up-to-date on new PHPartners resources, sign up for the weekly email update through https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=phpartners_link&A=1 or subscribe to the PHPartners RSS feed at http://phpartners.org/rss_information.html.

Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health

Against the Odds focuses on how individuals and communities, in collaboration with scientists, advocates, governments and international organizations, have made and are making a difference in the health of people around the globe.

The exhibit presents a look at the public health problems posed by Hurricane Katrina. It showcases the barefoot doctors program, which trained over one million young people to treat the common ailments of residents of rural China in the 1960s and 1970s. The exhibition also profiles a campaign for oral rehydration in Bangladesh that was so successful that it has been adopted in Afghanistan as well. In another example of nation-to-nation collaboration, “Against the Odds” shows how the Pholela Health Center in South Africa inspired the community health center movement in the U.S.

Videocast of the opening:
http://videocast.nih.gov/Summary.asp?File=14435

The exhibition web site:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/againsttheodds/introduction.html

The Bathtub collection consists of fragments found in the old and rare bindings of the NLM’s rare book collection when items were rebound and conserved in the 1940s and 1950s. It is called the “Bathtub Collection” because then-curator Dorothy Schullian took the leftovers of conservation work home and soaked them in her bathtub to retrieve the often interesting bits and pieces of medieval manuscripts and early printed ephemera she found.

Slowly and ploddingly, especially where they had been glued together to form the linings of covers, I have soaked them apart in my bathtub. My knees, I assure you, have suffered, but I have entered a bibliographer’s paradise …” (Dorothy M. Schullian. “Here the Frailest Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 47 (1953))

Please visit the site at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/bathtub/

NLM is also home to numerous genealogical resources for those seeking information about ancestors with medical or health related training. Among these is the AMA Deceased Physicians Card File, a collection of nearly 400,000 index cards created by the AMA between about 1901 and 1969 focusing on everyone in the U.S. who received a medical degree. The cards were updated throughout the physician’s career with information about degrees obtained, licensing, addresses and finally cause of death and sometimes obituary citations and even portraits. Please visit the site at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/genealogy/

http://www.ahrq.gov/news/press/pr2008/innovationspr.htm

A new Web resource that allows users to learn, share, and adopt innovations in the delivery of health services was launched today by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The resource-called the Health Care Innovations Exchange-is available at www.innovations.ahrq.gov.

AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange is the federal government’s repository for successful health care innovations. It also includes useful descriptions of attempts at innovation that failed. The Web site is a tool for health care leaders, physicians, nurses, and other health professionals who seek to reduce health care disparities and improve health care overall.

One of the innovations reads like an NN/LM funded outreach project:

Church-Based Initiative Supports Volunteers in Providing Education and Screenings to 150,000+ Memphis Residents, Leading to Improved Health Status (04/14/2008)

A church-based program trains congregational members to be volunteer “Health Representatives” for their churches. These representatives provide health and disease prevention education and health screenings related to health priorities established by the church and its pastor, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS.

Stay tuned, there is also an upcoming Webinar: Using AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange to Take on the Challenges of Care Delivery scheduled for May 12, 2:00 to 3:30 EDT.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is pleased to announce the solicitation of quotations from organizations and libraries to design and conduct projects that will improve access to HIV/AIDS related health information for patients, the affected community, and their caregivers.

Projects must involve one or more of the following information access categories:

• Information retrieval
• Skills development
• State-of-the-art resources
• Resource development
• Document Access.

Emphasis is placed upon the following types of organizations or arrangements for developing these programs:

• Community-based organizations (CBOs) or patient advocacy groups currently providing HIV/AIDS related serves to the affected community
• Public libraries serving communities in the provision of HIV/AIDS-related information and resources
• Health departments or other local, municipal, or state agencies working to improve public health
• Faith-based organizations currently providing HIV/AIDS-related services
• Multi-type consortia of the above-listed organizations that may be in existence or formed specifically for this project.

Standard Awards are offered for up to $60,000. Express Awards are offered for up to $10,000.

Quotations are due to NLM on Monday, June 16, 2008.

The solicitation for the 2008 AIDS Community Information Outreach Projects is posted at http://www.sis.nlm.nih.gov/hiv/2008aidsrfq.html .

Previously funded AIDS Community Information Outreach Projects are posted at http://www.sis.nlm.nih.gov/outreach/aids_cio_projects.html .

If there are any questions or concerns regarding the Request for Quotations (RFQ) or submission of the proposal, please contact Robin Hope-Williams, the NLM Contracting Officer, at (301) 496-6546 or email to: rhwilli@mail.nih.gov.

The NGC mission is to provide physicians, nurses, and other health professionals, health care providers, health plans, integrated delivery systems, purchasers and others an accessible mechanism for obtaining objective, detailed information on clinical practice guidelines and to further their dissemination, implementation and use. Below are links to guidelines for April’s health topics.

Health Awareness Topics - April 2008

• Alcohol Awareness Month (see related guidelines)
• Cancer Control Month (see the Frequently Requested Search page for various cancer-related topics)
• National Autism Awareness Month (see related guidelines)
• STD Awareness Month (see the Frequently Requested Search page for various STD-related topics)