National Library of Medicine Projects in the South Central Region
Arkansas
Access to Electronic
Health Information for the Public
Fort Smith Public Library
The purpose of this project is to combine teaching and training expertise with cutting edge technology to bring health information and health information seeking skills to consumers, health professionals, and library staff members in the greater Fort Smith, Arkansas community. The project establishes a new partnership between the Fort Smith Public Library and St. Edward Mercy Medical Center. The project involves teaching health care consumers, health professionals, and library staff members how to search the Internet for reliable and authoritative health information and demonstrating and teaching the use of NLM electronic health information products including MedlinePlus, Clinicaltrials.gov, ToxTown, and PubMed, among others. In most cases, training will be done at one of four Fort Smith Public Library locations utilizing a mobile computer lab created by the combination of a wireless high speed Internet network and 15 wireless-enabled notebook computers
Louisiana
Community Outreach Partnership
Project
Louisiana State University
Several community agencies in Shreveport, Louisiana and a number of entities within Louisiana State University have come together to create a different approach to managing and preventing diabetes in the Allendale and surrounding communities. This family-centered, community-based diabetes project will help members of these communities have better access to appropriate health information, health screening and health education through the relationships created by this project. The specific interventions of the project include nutrition education, exercise behavior change counseling, nurse practitioner diabetic care and patient education.
Oklahoma
Access to Electronic
Health Information for the Public
Cherokee Nation Health Services Group
The Cherokee Nation has long recognized the value of health information and its impact on health outcomes. Patients should be well-informed, participate in decisions and communicate openly with their health care professionals. In an effort to provide patients with needed health care information the Cherokee Health Information Network (C.H.I.N.) will be developed. CHIN, consisting of a web site and work stations linked to the Internet at each community center in surrounding Cherokee communities, will give electronic access to quality health information including NLM resources.
Texas
Access to Electronic
Health Information for the Public
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
The goal of this project is to increase the use of quality health information by the citizens of South Texas communities. This would be accomplished by training high school students to use the health information resources of the National Library of Medicine. The students would then teach others. The project will also provide others with useful tools so they could set up similar projects. An additional outcome will be providing information to high school students about health librarianship as a career choice.
