The Maternal and Child Health Library at Georgetown University in collaboration with the National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center (OHRC) released a new edition of the knowledge path about oral health for infants, children, adolescents, and pregnant women. Presented in time for Children’s Dental Health Month in February, this electronic guide points to resources that analyze data, describe effective programs, and report on policy and research aimed at improving access to and the quality of oral health care. The knowledge path contains sections with resources for professionals, resources for consumers, and resources on specific aspects of oral health. Topics include child care and Head Start, dental sealants, early childhood caries, fluoride varnish, K-12 education, pregnancy, school-based care, school evaluation mandates, and special health care needs. The knowledge path is available at http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/kp_oralhealth.html. Knowledge paths on other topics are available at http://mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/index.html.

Susan Brune Lorenzo, MLS
E-mail: smblorenzo@gmail.com
Maternal and Child Health Library
National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health at Georgetown University
Web site: http://mchlibrary.info

March 8-13, 2009, Portland, Oregon

All communities have unmet health needs. Sometimes it is hard to determine exactly what those needs are, and often it is hard to get programs funded.

Researchers can help quantify health needs, but there is frequently a disconnect between what the community wants and what the researcher wants. That’s where a partnership between research and communities can help.

The goal of this program is to provide community members with the tools to approach researchers, identify research questions, write grants and collaborate on projects that address cancer health disparities. This training seminar is open to tribal community members with an interest in improving cancer prevention, screening, and treatment in his or her community. Throughout the week, participants will become familiar with elements of writing a winning community-based grant. Seminar topics will cover the following grant-writing basics: where to locate funding sources, how to establish grant-writing goals and objectives, how to develop a budget, and more.

Successful applicants receive a scholarship covering travel, hotel, per diem meal allowance, and course materials.

Click here for a brochure with an application form and draft agenda.

Applications are due by February 6, 2009.

If you are unable to view the attached application, please contact Jessica Kennedy and she can get an application form to you. Ms. Kennedys e-mail address is blarjesj@ohsu.edu and her phone number is (503) 494-1126.

The National Network of Libraries of Medicine MidContinental Region is sponsoring a workshop on Knowledge Management to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah on April 16-17. Participants of this workshop must attend as a team of two. The teams must include a hospital librarian and a professional from another department in the same institution. The goal of the workshop is for each team to explore the potential of knowledge management in the hospital setting, and to develop and implement a program in their institution.

In addition to the April 16-17, 2009 workshop, there will be required readings, two required online pre-workshop sessions and post-workshop communication sessions. These pre-workshop sessions will be held on March 9 and April 7 on Adobe Connect. The post-workshop sessions will be scheduled at a later date.

Cost of the workshop is $35: this includes one lunch and all break refreshments. This workshop is open to participants nationwide; however preference will be given to members of the MidContinental Region. The first 2 teams of MidContinental Region network members accepted for the workshop will have their travel expenses paid. Those 2 teams will be responsible to attend all sessions and either present their project within 18 months of the session or publish their work in a MidContinental Region publication.

For further information, and to apply to the workshop, go to http://nnlm.gov/mcr/education/classes_knowledge_management.html.
Deadline for submission of applications is February 6, 2009.

http://nnlm.gov/ep/
by Susan Yowell, NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response, Project Assistant & Recorder

Three new features have recently been added to the NN/LM Emergency Preparedness and Response Toolkit.

Dan Wilson, NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response Coordinator, has created an online tutorial for the Toolkit. The tutorial, available from the new page called “Tutorials,” is an overview of the site. It will be updated as new features and functionality are introduced. Dan also plans to add tutorials on other aspects of the NN/LM emergency preparedness initiative in the future.

A new section in the column on the right side of the Toolkit is titled “Risk Assessment Maps and Charts.” Under the heading are links to maps that you can use when developing your emergency plan.

Also added is a “Mutual Aid Agreement” (MAA) to the page that formerly contained only the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreement. The MAA may be more appealing to libraries that want to enter into a written agreement for continuity of service but don’t want to worry about legal ramifications of an MOU.

Update 1/29/09

The NN/LM-New England Region’s online learning program on Health Information Outreach and Community Engagement: Lessons Learned from the Experts is full. We are pleased with the overwhelming enthusiasm for the program. Due to a large waiting list, the program will be recorded for later viewing. The NER plans to send the link for the recording directly to participants on the waiting list as well as post it on our Connecting with the NER site. Unfortunately, MLA CE units will not be awarded for viewing the recording of the program

Health Information Outreach and Community Engagement: Lessons Learned from the Experts

Thursday, February 12, 2009 / 2 – 3:30 PM

Engaging your community with health information outreach projects is rewarding, meaningful work. Come learn from the experiences of experts in health information outreach and community engagement. Each speaker has led a successful health information outreach subcontract from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine/ New England Region. The program is intended for anyone interested in pursuing funding or learning more about how to engage the local community in effective health information outreach.

*Earn 1.5 Medical Library Association CE units

The Experts:

Beth Schneider, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
Project: Access to Resources for Community Health (ARCH) / Head Start CAPIC Collaboration
Marianne Burke, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT
Project: Connecting Patients, Providers, and the Community with Quality Health Information Outreach
Anne Conner, Littleton Regional Hospital, Littleton, NH
Project: Northern New Hampshire Health Information Outreach

Participants will:

a) Learn about three successful health information outreach projects
b) Learn how to plan and implement a successful health information outreach project
c) Know about the process of applying for funding from the NN/LM
d) Be aware of the rewards and challenges of conducting a health information outreach project
e) Gain knowledge about project evaluation

Registration:
Registration is free and on a first come, first serve basis. Session will be limited to fifty participants.
To register, please contact Martha Pearson at martha.pearson@umassmed.edu.

In your email please include:
• Name
• Institution/address with zip code/phone/e-mail
• Name of the program (Health Information Outreach and Community Engagement: Lessons Learned from the Experts).

Details of how to access the teleconference and Adobe Connect session will be forwarded at registration.

The SE/A is pleased to announce the introduction of two new awards:

The Express Hospital Library Promotion Award provides funding to support projects that hospital librarians can use to demonstrate their value to and increase their visibility in their institution. The goals of the Hospital Library Promotion Award are to: strengthen the position of the hospital librarians by demonstrating the value and skill of information professionals; create institutional or public awareness about the library;promote librarians role in the provision of health information for patient care and patient safety; advocate for the role of the hospital librarian in institutional activities and projects such as emergency preparedness, social media introduction, management training, and more and share successful promotional campaign strategies and ideas with other SE/A hospital libraries. Full Network members working in hospital libraries can apply for up to $5,000. A minimum of three awards is planned for the current contract year. See http://nnlm.gov/sea/funding/hosplibpromo.html for information and the application form.

The Express Library Digitization Award provides funding to enable libraries to digitize historical materials or a unique collection to increase its accessibility within or without the institution. Open to full and affiliate SE/A Network members, the award provides up to $5,000 for personnel, supplies, equipment and software used for the digitization of materials. A minimum of four awards is planned for the current contract year. See http://nnlm.gov/sea/funding/librarydigit.html for more information and the application form.

For questions, contact Janice Kelly at jkelly@hshsl.umaryland.edu.

http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/pubPDFs/ReprintPearson_et_al_AMIA_2008_Proc.pdf

A National Library of Medicine (NLM), Communications Engineering Branch (CEB)* project to help people find and evaluate nursing homes has won a Distinguished Paper Award at the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 2008 symposium.

Each year in the United States, millions of people choose a nursing home because they or a loved one are too sick to live on their own, or need short-term help after an operation or illness. Recognizing that the search for a good nursing home can be lengthy, or may have to be done at a stressful time, and at a distance, NLM is developing an easy-to-use Web site to help people quickly locate nursing homes and screen them for quality.

The Nursing Home Screener, currently in prototype form, uses Web 2.0 technology to display multiple nursing homes on a Google map. A list of homes is also provided. The screener enables people to survey nursing home quality in four categories: staffing, fire safety deficiencies, healthcare deficiencies, and quality of care inferred from residents’ health. The quality measures come from the publicly-available information that federally-funded nursing homes must provide to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

“The whole point of the screener is to help someone identify nursing homes that are most worth further investigation or a personal visit,” says George Thoma, PhD, Chief of the NLM’s Communications Engineering Branch. Thoma co-authored the award-winning paper with principal authors Glenn Pearson, PhD, and Michael Gill.

The NLM team says it is developing the screener for older Americans who may be looking for a home for themselves or spouse, for middle-aged caregivers, and for health care professionals such as social workers, nurses and physicians who may be involved in the search for a nursing home.

* The Communications Engineering Branch (CEB) is a part of the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, an R&D division of the National Library of Medicine. Their mission is to conduct research and development on mission-critical tasks at NLM and NIH, such as cancer research, document delivery, digital preservation, and automated ways of building resources such as MEDLINE®. All software products developed by their researchers are freely available.

by Sara Tybaert, MEDLARS Management Section

This year 149 MeSH Headings were either changed or deleted and replaced with more up-to-date terminology. For simplest access to MeSH, the National Library of Medicine suggests using the MeSH Browser, an interactive Web application for searching and browsing MeSH data.

Category N - Health Care

• Moving and Lifting Patients
• Prescriptions
• Electronic Prescribing
• Hospitals, Isolation
• Clinical
  Governance (not limited to the United Kingdom)
• Telenursing

New subcategory N06 (Environment and Public Health)

• Biohazard Release
• Biosurveillance
• Chemical Hazard Release
• Extreme Cold
• Extreme Heat
• Infectious Disease Incubation Period
• Lot Quality Assurance Sampling
• Multilevel Analysis
• Secondary Prevention
• Structure Collapse
• Tertiary Prevention

Indexing Policy for New Young Adult Check Tag

Young Adult is a new check tag for 2009 indexing forward. It will not be applied to citations retrospectively. NLM follows the U.S. Census definition of ages 19-24. This age range overlaps with the existing check tag Adult which is defined as the ages 19-44. Indexing policy is as follows:

If the article describes persons aged 19-24 only, we will use Young Adult
check tag “Age 19-24″ only.

If the article describes persons aged 25-44 only, we will use Adult check
tag “Age 19-44″ only.

If the article describes persons aged 19-44, we will use both Young Adult
and Adult check tags “Age 19-24″ and “Age 19-44.”

The National Network of Libraries of Medicine, SE/A Region will be closed on Monday, January 19, 2009 to observe  Dr. Martin Luther King Day.  We will reopen at 8:30 am on Tuesday, January 20, 2009.

The National Library of Medicine will also be closed on the 19th of January for MLK Day  and will remain closed on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 for the inauguration ceremonies in Washington, DC .

Social networking tools are increasingly being seen not only as personal applications for creating connections between people, but for creating presence for organizations such as libraries and, even, hospitals. Ed Bennett, Director, Web Strategy at the University of Maryland Medical System and David Ekrem, Manager, Web Development at the MassGeneral Hospital for Children maintain a list–Hospital Social Network List — of hospitals that use social networking tools to create bridges to their users. The list draws a line between the official sites of the hospitals and those created by hospital “fans,” including only those that they felt were created by the hospitals themselves. If your own hospital is not on this list and uses some of the tools they track, such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, they invite you to alert them via email at ebennett@umm.edu.

For information on how they created the list, please visit the FAQ available on the website.