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New England Region Featured Projects 2007
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Standardizing Medical Abbreviations
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Knowledge ServicesOne year ago the Director of Health Information Management (HIM) asked Medical Library Services to help the HIM Forms Committee locate an authoritative list of medical abbreviations for use at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).
Upon investigation, we found that even authoritative lists contained several definitions for almost every abbreviation and that abbreviation-definition pairs were not weighted. Criteria, such as frequency of use or number of years in use, would indicate how the abbreviations might be interpreted by the reader. We evaluated various “acronym resolvers,” which offer statistical data on the use of abbreviations in the medical literature and recommended the Acronym Resolving General Heuristics database as the best resource for the Forms Committee.
In presenting our findings, we also proposed formal procedures and criteria for approving abbreviations for use at BIDMC. We proposed that Medical Library Services provide data for abbreviations that are pending approval, maintain an approved abbreviations database, and screen patient-readable forms, such as informed consents, for “plain language.” Recommendations were approved and a librarian was invited to serve on the committee.
Recognizing the expanding role of Medical Library Services, the Chief Information officer of BIDMC changed the name of the division to Knowledge Services in August, 2007. In addition to providing traditional library services, Knowledge Services staff members collaborate with the Forms Committee, work with the Ethics Committee, index online course materials for Harvard Medical School, and serve as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) agent for BIDMC.
Evidence-based Mental Health Summer Institute
Dartmouth Biomedical Libraries
The Dartmouth Biomedical Libraries have partnered with Dartmouth's Department of Psychiatry and its Psychiatric Research Center to create and conduct the Dartmouth Summer Institute in Evidence-Based Mental Health . This innovative program is a three-day professional course for psychiatrists and other mental health workers that teaches the evidence-based process using topics in the areas of child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric mental health. The conference is an annual event.
The course is designed around small-group sessions and focuses on hands-on, case-based training. Faculty-librarian teams facilitate each small group. Medical librarians from Dartmouth and Yale are central to creating and designing the course.
Feedback is overwhelmingly positive; participants particularly value the active learning design. Medical librarians from across the country participate in the institutes.
The Dartmouth Biomedical Libraries are developing for 2008 a similar course specifically for medical librarians who want to learn EBM concepts and actively support and teach evidence-based practice in their institutions. Faculty will include librarians from Duke, Yale, and Dartmouth.
Celebrating 160 Years
Massachusetts General Hospital Treadwell Library
Treadwell Library, the Health Sciences Library of Massachusetts General Hospital, recently celebrated its 160th anniversary on the birthday of its namesake John G. Treadwell. The library started in 1847 with a budget of $250. Ten years later Dr. Treadwell bequeathed $5,000 and 2,500 medical books. A recent exhibit celebrating the library interwove Treadwell's life with the history of the hospital and library (http://www.massgeneral.org/library/default.asp?page=history). One poster showed the average hospital census in 1847 was 81 patients at a cost of $5.64 per week. A copy of the handwritten town census was displayed, showing the value and occupants of Treadwell's Salem home.
Treadwell Library's legacy of change and growth continues with a renewed emphasis on the philosophy that all librarians are outreach librarians. This year library staff received the hospital's Partners in Excellence award for several initiatives including the creation of an online library tour as the next step in integrating library instruction into MGH’s Institute of Health Professions' curriculum (http://www.massgeneral.org/library/3mt/ ). A newly created Clinical Liaison Librarian position focuses on developing relationships with more clinical groups to bring librarians' expertise to the point of practice.
Treadwell continues to go outside its own walls and recently celebrated the opening of the Resource Room at a nearby Head Start Center (http://www.massgeneral.org/library/arch/headstart/ ). This program, which is supported by NLM/NER funding, provides parents and Head Start staff with health information in English and Spanish as well as instruction in using computers and searching the Internet.
Healthy Choices: Connecticut Consumer Health Awareness and Information Resource Education Project
Stamford Hospital, Connecticut
Healthy Choices is a community-based, consumer-health outreach and training program designed foster information-savvy healthcare consumers. Stamford Hospital Health Sciences Library leads the program in collaboration with four area community libraries in Darien, Norwalk, Stamford and Wilton.
The public program consists of hands-on classes using MedlinePlus and presentations by health professionals on topics from heart disease and osteoporosis to sleep disorders and pandemic influenza. A traveling exhibit moves between training sites to promote the program and to encourage visitors to learn more about MedlinePlus. The program also focuses on training public librarians with best-practice skills in using NLM consumer health information resources.
The public librarians training program is endorsed by the Connecticut Library Consortium (CLC). CLC certificates and CE credits from the Medical Library Association are awarded for completion of four competency-based modules (consumer information, clinical literature, complementary healthcare, Spanish language resources).
Back to National Medical Librarians Month 2007 page
Last reviewed: 10 September 2008
Last updated: 27 September 2007
First published: 01 October 2007
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