MCMLA Library Advocacy Task Force is sponsoring a contest for “High Altitudes and New Attitudes on Library Marketing and Promotion!”  Here is your chance to show off your marketing project or promotional activities that you have used to improve or expand services in your library or for your users.  MCR members are encouraged to submit materials to Marketing and Promotion Categories: you may enter one or both categories. 

Prizes for the best entry scoring above 80 points will be awarded.  Entries will be evaluated on Design, Presentation and Evaluation Criteria.  Categories for entry are Hospital Libraries, Academic Libraries and Other Libraries.   Entries should be submitted to Barb Jones (jonesbarb@health.missouri.edu) by September 1, 2009.  Judges for the contest will be members of the MCMLA Library Advocacy Task Force.  All entries are encouraged to display their projects and promotional materials at the Marketing Booth at MCMLA.  The winners will be announced at MCMLA 2009 in Breckinridge, Colorado.  (bbj)

Developing Proposed Requirements to Advance Effective Communication, Cultural Competence, and Patient-Centered Care for the Hospital Accreditation Program
The Joint Commission, with funding from The Commonwealth Fund, is developing proposed accreditation requirements for hospitals to advance effective communication, cultural competence, and patient-centered care.  This 18-month project will explore how diversity, culture, language, and health literacy issues can be better incorporated into current Joint Commission standards or drafted into new requirements.  In conjunction with the proposed requirements, The Joint Commission is developing an implementation guide that will help hospitals meet the proposed requirements and provide best practice information and educational resources and tools.  Additional project information can be accessed at: http://tinyurl.com/5fhryd See the Joint Commission’s Culturally Competent Patient Centered Care for Hospital Accreditation Program Wiki at  http://tinyurl.com/pzn5mw [posted on Health Literacy Listserv] scb

PHPartners is the product of a collaboration of U.S. government agencies, public health organizations and health sciences libraries. The August 26 webinar class will cover the website, which will include information on current topics such as Bioterrorism, ongoing projects such as Healthy People 2010, and public health resources including promotions and statistics.

Tune in on Wednesday, Aug. 26 at 1:00MT, 2:00CT for the MLA CE class PHPartners presented by Marty Magee.

This online training is FREE, and requires no registration. All you need is a computer with Internet access and a phone. You’ll sign in as a guest, enter your phone number when prompted and the system will call you! Access it by going to: https://webmeeting.nih.gov/mcr.

To receive Medical Library Association Continuing Education credit, you will need to attend the class, participate in the exercises and e-mail Marty Magee: mmagee@unmc.edu. An evaluation form will be sent to you to complete before the MLA CE certificate will be sent to you.

This exciting new tool for community health education will offer free access for organizations and community groups to a large variety of videos related to refugee health and resettlement. The RHP Lending Library will maintain a comprehensive collection of educational materials about refugee populations. There are many topics, presented in multiple languages, ranging from tuberculosis, lead safety, and domestic abuse to the crisis in Darfur and dental health. The library currently holds over 60 videos, and they expect it to continue to grow each year. To check out the MDH Refugee Health Lending Library, visit: http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/refugee/library/index.html [scb]

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius unveiled a new easy to use feature on Grants.gov http://grants.gov/ to help users find and apply for The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grant opportunities. Grants.gov contains information about finding and applying for all federal grant programs. The launch of this Recovery Act feature on the homepage of Grants.gov will direct users to Recovery Act opportunities, other Recovery Act resources, upcoming Webinars and links to http://www.whitehouse.gov/recovery and http://www.recovery.gov [scb]

Check out the August issue of NIH News in Health, the monthly newsletter bringing you practical health news and tips based on the latest NIH research.

In this edition:

Concerned About Coffee? It May Actually Be Good for You

You’ve Got Rhythm - Your Internal Clock Affects Your Health

Health Capsules:

• Questions Raised About “Depression Gene”
• Tasty Recipes for People with Diabetes
• Featured Web Site: NIH Education and Awareness Campaigns

Last week, I attended the National Rural Health Association Quality and Clinical Conference. The NRHA has made the handouts from the conference available at http://tinyurl.com/l48pgb. Topics include electronic health records, telemedicine, and models for rural health care. [SD]

The MCR has announced the availability of funding through its Continuity of Health Information Award. If you’ve started writing your proposal or are considering writing a proposal, attend a technical session to gain clarification of what is expected and consults on your project ideas. Claire Hamasu will review the request for proposal (RFP) explaining the different sections. You’ll then have the opportunity to describe your project to a liaison and receive feedback on what you should emphasize and other issues you may need to consider, and get advice on how to make your proposal fundable.

No registration is required. To attend you’ll need an Internet connection and a telephone. Sessions will be held at https://webmeeting.nih.gov/nnlmmcr. Sign in as a guest with your first and last name. Instructions will then follow about the phone connection. /ch

August Sessions (Additional sessions are being planned):

Wednesday Aug 5 - 2pm MT, 3pm CT

Tuesday Aug 11 - 3pm MT, 4pm CT

Last week, I attended the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) Quality and Clinical Conference in Park City, UT. At the conference, Doug Romer, Executive Director-Patient Care Services at Grande Ronde Hospital in LaGrande, OR, gave a fascinating talk and demonstration of the “remote presence” telemedicine services provided by the hospital in conjunction with various partners.

The hospital uses an inTouch RP7 robot that can be controlled remotely by physicians not located at the hospital. The robot has a monitor, camera and audio system so that the patients and remote physician can see and hear each other.

At the conference, Mr. Romer conducted a live demo of the system using the hotel’s wireless Internet access — participants were able to communicate with a patient undergoing an ultrasound and see the results of the ultrasound live. We were instructed that the patient did not want to know the sex of the baby, so to please not reveal that information when we saw the ultrasound!

To see the system in action, view the video the hospital has made available on this page: http://www.grh.org/srvTelmed.html. [SD]

TwitCam (http://www.twitcam.com) is a new free service that allows you to stream live video to your Twitter followers. You must have a Twitter account to use TwitCam.

TwitCam posts a video description and link for your Twitter followers to find your video. When you are broadcasting from your camera, you can chat with your Twitter followers directly from the broadcast page. You can also record an archive of the broadcast.

Although this is intended for live broadcast to an audience, it could also be used to create a promotional or informational video that you want others to view asynchronously.

At the moment the service has a lot of test videos as examples. It will be interesting to see the videos that are created as the service grows! [SD]