The Surgeon General’s Family Health History Tool, originally created in 2004 to help families track their health history to share with care providers leading to better prevention of diseases by raising awareness of health risks, is recently updated and improved.  

The most exciting update to the Family Health History Tool is the code for the new tool is now openly available for others to adopt.  Other organization are encouraged to download the code and use to create their own customized risk assessment tools.  A couple early adopters of the tool are the National Institute of Genomic Medicine of Mexico and the Indian Health Service of the HHS.

The new version of the Family Health History Tool has enhanced convenience, consumer control and privacy, sharing and is EHR ready.  Estimated time to completed a family health history is 15-20 minutes. 

Check out the press release for more information about the updates to My Family Health Portrait.

Free Online Distance Education Opportunity

Stay up to date professionally without leaving your desk! The National Network of Libraries of Medicine, New England Region (NN/LM NER), offers free distant education classes on health information topics.

Each session is held via teleconference and has an online component via Adobe Connect. All you need to participate is a phone near a computer with Internet access.

Maintaining Your DOCLINE Routing Table

Presenter: Mark Goldstein

Date: January 28, 2009

Time: 2:00 – 3:30 PM

Concept: To give DOCLINE participants a chance to receive a quick review on how to maintain their routing table, as well as share in the benefit of the Q&A format.

Description:

Highlights will include a review of the basics:

Match program’s Boolean logic
Time triggers (1+3)
Randomization and the absence of load balancing
Free-vs-Fee zones
RT Guidelines for NER members
RT Authorization process for the RML
Searching for viable lenders:
DOCLINE Report 1-7
Using the SearchBuilder Facility
Seasonal recommendations for update/review
Registration:

Registration is free and on a first come, first serve basis.

To register, please contact Martha Pearson at martha.pearson@umassmed.edu. Details of how to access the teleconference and Adobe Connect session will be forwarded at registration.

Planning for the health and safety of those attending mass gatherings is an enormous challenge for local officials. Mass gatherings are defined as those attracting more than 1,000 participants and include events like the Olympics, Super Bowl, religious services conducted by the Pope, state funerals, and presidential inaugurations. Public health concerns range from ensuring adequate drinking water, food safety, first aid, and toilet facilities to planning for the extremes of possible major accidents, dangerous weather and even terrorist threats.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has compiled a Web page of links to information on the public health aspects of planning for all kinds of mass gatherings, http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/massgatherings.html. These resources include a search of PubMed for medical journal article citations as well as documents from government and other sources. Topics include preparedness for large numbers of casualties and management of disease outbreaks.

The upcoming 2009 Presidential Inauguration is an excellent example of a mass gathering requiring extensive planning. Washington DC-area TV, radio, newspapers and their Internet sites are the best sources for learning about local health services, emergency, and hospital planning for the inauguration.

Health tips for those attending inauguration weekend outdoor activities are available from the US Department of Health and Human Services at http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2009pres/01/20090112a.html.

For more information on the Disaster Information Management Research Center at NLM, please visit http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov/.

The Massachusetts Health Council presents a Women’s Health Forum, “Getting Healthy, Staying Healthy: Knowledge is Everything”

Friday March 20, 2009
7:30 AM - 3:30 PM
Marriott Copley Place
Boston, MA

Speakers will include Dr. Cynthia Geyer, Medical Director from Canyon Ranch in Lenox, Dr. Mallika Marshall of WBZ-TV and Marjorie Clapprood of WRKO Radio.

The conference will include challenging issues in women’s health: Breast and Cervical Cancer, Domestic Violence, Heart Disease, Reproductive and Sexual Health 30–70, Healthy Aging, Maintaining a Healthy Weight, Managing Stress, Access and Disparities.

Program details are available at http://www.mahealthcouncil.org/2009Women-Invitation.pdf.

Register online at http://www.mahealthcouncil.org/registration-ckcc.htm.

NN/LM NER will be exhibiting at this conference.

The January issue of NIH News in Health, the monthly newsletter bringing you practical health news and tips based on the latest NIH research, is now online. In this edition:

• When the Weather Gets Cold, Winter Health Problems
• Understanding Human Behavior, Using Computers to Improve our Health
• Health Capsules

Click here to download a PDF version for printing.

Please pass the word on to your colleagues about The NIH News in Health.  We are happy to send a limited number of print copies free of charge for display in offices, libraries or clinics.  Just email us or call 301-435-7489 for more information.

Harrison Wein, Ph.D., Writer/Editor
National Institutes of Health
Office of the Director, Office of Communications and Public Liaison
Bldg. 31, Rm. 5B64A, MSC 2094
Bethesda, MD 20892-2094
Phone:  301-435-7489
Fax:  301-480-4026
E-mail:  weinh@od.nih.gov

The NIH News in Health: http://newsinhealth.nih.gov/

NIH Research Matters (eColumn): http://www.nih.gov/news/research_matters

Announcing a collaborative space for Native Health Information Outreach!

Share your experiences in:

Outreach Connections:  Native Health Information Wiki

This space is intended:

• for those who work with health care providers serving Native peoples (American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians).
• for those who work with Native health information consumers.
• to improve health information access for Native peoples.
• to exchange information from health information promotion and training experiences.
• to complement sites already focused on health information for Native peoples.

Librarians, patient educators, and others who provide health information to Native peoples and their caregivers are encouraged to contribute your projects to the wiki. You can include outreach projects, education and training projects, resources you’ve developed, and descriptions of research you’ve done. Share information about technology you’ve used, observations you’ve made, and advice you have for others who would like to do something similar. If you are willing to share training/teaching materials or other related materials under the Creative Commons non-commercial share-alike license, please post them. All material submitted to this site is shared under the Creative Commons non-commercial share-alike license so that you can borrow and adapt the resources for your own use.

Check out the new NN/LM – New England Region lending library! The lending library includes core resources such as: the proceedings of Medical Library Association conferences from 2000 to the present, as well as MLA webcasts and teleconferences. Did you miss the MLA webcast on Web 2.0 or strategies to promote your library’s value? Would you like to view them and receive MLA CE units? Here is your opportunity. You may borrow the webcasts and request a participant manual from the program as well. We will send you an evaluation form to complete after viewing the program. When you return the evaluation form to us, we will send you MLA CE units.

The NER’s lending library’s collection includes resources to help you stay updated on the latest trends in health sciences librarianship including important issues like:

· answering consumer health questions

· copyright in cyberspace

· disaster planning

· evidence based public health

· fundraising

· grant and proposal writing

· selecting and managing electronic resources

…and much more!

The lending library is exclusively available to Full and Affiliate members in the NER.  Requests are limited to 4 items per institution at any one time. Items are loaned out for a 2 week period. Please contact Martha Pearson at martha.pearson@umassmed.edu to request items.

Happy New Year!

Be sure to take advantage of the new resources at your fingertips for your professional development!

Free Online Distance Education Opportunity

Stay up to date professionally without leaving your desk! The National Network of Libraries of Medicine, New England Region (NN/LM NER), continues its free distant education classes on health information topics.

Each session is held via teleconference and has an online component via Adobe Connect. All you need to participate is a phone near a computer with Internet access.

Public Health Online Resources - Virtual Tour of PHPartners.org

Presenter: Hathy Simpson
Date: February 3, 2009
Time: 10:00 – 11:30 AM
Description:
This session will provide an overview of public health information resources available from the public health web portal, PHPartners.org. The Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce website, http://PHPartners.org, provides access to selected online public health resources from government agencies, health science libraries, and professional and research organizations. Hathy Simpson, Public Health Coordinator for the NER and Content Developer for PHPartners.org, will highlight information resources tailored to the public health workforce including resources on health education and promotion, data and statistics, legislation and policy, jobs and careers, public health news, environmental health, nutrition, and more!

Registration:
Registration is free and on a first come, first serve basis.

To register, please contact Martha Pearson at martha.pearson@umassmed.edu. Details of how to access the teleconference and Adobe Connect session will be forwarded upon registration.

PubMed is constantly changing. To keep you informed I am going to post brief overviews on a regular basis. This first posting will cover the 3 display formats that are typically used when viewing search results: Summary, Abstract and Abstractplus.

What’s different in each PubMed display?

Display formats vary based on added features…

Summary display-this is the default display and where most of the new features are occurring. There are many experimental “discovery tools” being tested. A user may see a new box displayed to the right of their results one day but not another.
Here’s a quick overview of what is available now:

First the format of the citation has changed.  

• The title of the article now displays on top and is the link to open the abstract or abstractplus display.
  The option to have the author(s) display first is still available by using the drop-down menu to convert to text format or for saving to a file.
• The icons that indicated whether there was an abstract, full text or availability in PubMed Central are no longer available. Instead it is noted at the end of the citation if an abstract is not available; otherwise it can be assumed that there is one.
• PubMed Central availability is noted below the citation. The limits section in Advanced Search or preferences in MyNCBI can be used to filter your results for free full text. This is not clearly indicated in the summary format but icons to the supplier are shown in the abstract and abstrcatplus displays

New features:

• Recent Activity-a box displayed to the right of the results shows your search history in PubMed as well as other databases from NCBI, currently these include PubMed Central, Gene and OMIM

• Drug Sensor-a new resource from the PubMed Bookshelf titled, PubMed Clinical Q&A will display in a box on the right side of the page if content connected to the drug term is available. This resource is in process. It is a growing collection of evidence based medicine summaries (more on this in a future posting).

• Citation Sensor-

• Identifies components of a citation in your search terms and make suggestions for possible matches
• Displays in a yellow highlighted box at the top of the full results page

• Gene Sensor-currently displaying to 50% of the users, this will be located in the same area as the Citation Sensor-it will provide a link to a record(s) in Entrez Gene where terms from your search have identified information there.

MORE TO COME: additional boxes will randomly display to the right of the citation. Some of these, “Results found in article titles” and “Also Try”, are displaying to a limited amount of users now.

Click to view image

Abstract display-this format has not changed much. It is the most basic display with the abstract included-here library and publisher icons show at the top of the citation, related articles are identified with a link.

• Related Articles link is to the right of the citation
• Library and publisher icons are at the top of the citation

Click to view image

AbstractPlus display- this adds more content than the plain abstract page. The related articles feature is visible in a box to the right of the citation and results for consumer drug information are displayed here.

• Related articles with related reviews box-this is where the first five related articles are displayed in a box to the right of the citation, two review articles within that set are marked with the word highlighted in red. The results can be expanded by clicking on the appropriate link below the box.
• Patient Drug Information (AHFS Consumer Medication Information)-This is drug information intended for the consumer, the information comes from the same source used in MedlinePlus
• Library holdings, publisher icons-Icons linking to available full text are displayed, in abstractplus library icons are displayed below the citation and publisher icons are to the right above the boxes

Click to view image