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

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!

“Connecting with the NER” A Distance Education Series: December Programs

Stay up to date professionally without leaving your desk! The National Network of Libraries of Medicine/ New England Region brings you a continuation of our popular distance education series. This ongoing series features hot topics in health sciences librarianship and highlights major updates to National Library of Medicine resources.

Register for one or both sessions. Additional sessions will be announced soon.

Each session is held via teleconference and will have an online component via Adobe Connect. All you need to participate is a phone near a computer with Internet access. Registration is on a first come, first serve basis. If there is more than one interested participant from your library, we encourage you to use a speaker phone to participate together.

We are currently accepting registrations for the first two programs.

PubMed and More: News from the National Library of Medicine
Lauri Kolakoski Fennell
Date: December 10, 2008
Time: 10:00-11:30 AM
Direct from her official NLM Orientation, Lauri will be sharing news and updates from Bethesda. The focus of the session will be on PubMed changes. New information on SIS and NCBI resources, along with other news from NLM, will also be covered. Watch for more details when she returns on December 8th.

Setting up RSS Feeds: Newsfeeds, Blogs, and PubMed
Penny Glassman
Date: December 17, 2008
Time: 2:00-3:30 PM
This session will provide participants with an introduction to the NN/LM NER Blog, describe how RSS feeds work with Bloglines and Google Feeds, and discuss PubMed RSS Feeds, including how to create a feed for your Web site.

Highlights:

1. The NN/LM NER Blog
2. RSS Feeds Explained
3. Feed Readers: Bloglines and Google
4. PubMed and RSS Feeds: Personal Use and Creating for a Web Site

To register, please contact Martha Pearson at martha.pearson@umassmed.edu <mailto:martha.pearson@umassmed.edu> and let her know the session(s) you want to attend. Details of how to access the teleconference and Adobe Connect session will be forwarded upon registration.

For additional information, including a preview of the sessions planned for January and February, please go to http://nnlm.gov/ner/training/distancelearning.html.

Learn about the history and future directions of MedlinePlus Go Local in Naomi Miller’s latest article, The NLM Hosted Go Local System: An Opportunity for Medical Libraries. Most importantly, learn how your library can benefit by participating in Go Local.

Welcome to October!

Marking Medical Librarians’ Month and to celebrate the work of medical librarians throughout the country, the National Library of Medicine has put out its annual page featuring the work of medical librarians and the interesting projects they conduct for their institutions and beyond.

This year New England Network Member institutions and their librarians in New Hampshire and Maine are recognized for their work respectively in theater and outreach to immigrant populations. Read about those projects at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/lo/profiles08/ner.html .

And you can read about the projects from all of the regions in the Network at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/lo/profiles08/.

Happy Medical Librarians’ Month!

Your local NNLM coordinators spent the past week at exhibiting at the ASTRO (American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology) at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Our participation at national exhibits help us to get the word out to health professionals about the high quality resources available through the National Library of Medicine. Most conference attendees were familiar with PubMed. Our objective is to educate about advanced search features. Though, the My NCBI feature came out in 2005. There is still a large majority of health professionals who are unaware of this outstanding feature. My experience is that when care providers learn about the “current awareness” feature (that they can save searches to have them emailed on a regular update)…there is much excitement. This is a time saving and educational tool, which is essential for keeping up to date with new research.

Keep your providers up to date on the “hot topics” most relevant to them. Help them to register for a MyNCBI account, customize searches with them and have them emailed to them. My observation is that most providers are just not using RSS yet. We need to be where are users are at…

Here is our own Lauri Fennell, Outreach and Education Coordinator, demonstrating MyNCBI.