Category Archives: news

Disaster Information Specialists Conference Call: Ebola Outbreak Resources

Disaster Information Specialists Program monthly conference call/webinar on Ebola Outbreak: Managing Health Information Resources

 Thursday, October 9, 2014, 1:30 PM ET

The 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak has resulted in an explosion of information on many aspects of managing the disease from a clinical and public health perspective. There is also considerable interest in related topics such as legalities of quarantine; ethics of vaccine development; shaming and isolation of Ebola survivors, family members of the deceased and Ebola orphans; food security; and the effects on healthcare for other medical conditions in areas with extremely limited resources. How does one make sense of the outpouring of information from news media, social media, publications and guidelines from international agencies, national governments, NGOs, and professional associations; situation reports; maps and other tools for visualizing the outbreak? What about health messaging materials like infographics, radio jingles, banners, TV interviews, and webinars? Join us to discuss the nature of information flow during an infectious disease outbreak, with a special focus on Ebola-related resources from the National Library of Medicine.

Presenter:  Cindy Love is a medical librarian with over 20 years’ experience in public health information management at the National Library of Medicine. As part of the NLM Disaster Information Management Research Center, Cindy has developed information resources for every major U.S. and international disaster in the last 5 years. She first co-authored a bibliography on “Viral Hemorrhagic Fever” in 1996. It ranks #8,569,688 on Amazon’s list of bestselling books.

The Disaster Information Specialist monthly meeting is open to everyone.  To join the meeting click on https://webmeeting.nih.gov/disinfo  Enter your name in the guest box and click “Enter Room”.  A box should pop up asking for your phone number. Enter your phone number and the system will call you.  For those who cannot use this call-back feature, the dial-in information is: Dial-In:  1-888-757-2790, Pass-Code: 745907.

If you have never attended an Adobe Connect Pro meeting before: Test your connection: https://webmeeting.nih.gov/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm

Congratulations to Georgia Regents University – new host site for the NLM-sponsored biomedical informatics course

The National Library of Medicine has announced that Georgia Regents University (GRU) will serve as the host organization for the NLM-sponsored biomedical informatics course.

The NLM Biomedical Informatics Course, now entering its 22nd year, offers participants a week-long immersive experience in biomedical informatics taught by experts in the field.

The first course organized at Georgia Regents University will be held September 14-20, 2014, and subsequently each fall and spring through 2018. The course will be held at a conference center in Young Harris, GA, at no cost to participants.  The course was previously held at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, MA.

Application to the course is open to all, but space is limited. Preference will be given to American applicants who demonstrate, through a brief application letter, that they have the significant need for an understanding of the informatics solutions that are available to address their biomedical research, practice and education challenges and that, through their official position, they are significant “change agents” who can influence the adoption of best practices in their own environment and expand the influence of the course to others through teaching or by example.

The course, co-directed by James J. Cimino, MD, Chief, Laboratory for Informatics Development at the National Library of Medicine and the NIH Clinical Center, and NLM Director Donald Lindberg, MD, will guide participants through topics including biomedical informatics methods, clinical informatics, big data and imaging, genomics, consumer health informatics, mathematical modeling, and telemedicine and telehealth.

More information can be found here.  The application is here.  The deadline is July 7, 2014, 8 am EDT.

Program Announcement – CE Classes for GHSLA 2014

The program for the Annual Meeting at Barnsley Gardens (March 9-11) is being finalized.   Scheduled are the following CE courses.

Communicating Clinically with Julia Esparza, MLIS, AHIP 4 hours, 4 MLA CE contact hours

As librarians leave their library offices to reach out clinicians in their environment there is an increasing need to know how to communicate with clinicians (physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals) in a manner that is professional but also adapts to the unique environment of the hospital floor or office setting. In this course participants will learn about common techniques utilized currently by the instructor in communicating and providing information at the point of care. In addition participants will learn about non-verbal cues in assessing the environment. Participants will listen and identify information needs from actual clinical rounds and review several articles and write a clinical review/summary.

And PICO Was His Name-o: What to Look for in an EBM Study with Sheila Snow-Croft, MLIS, AHIP, Public Health Coordinator, NN/LM SE/A 3 MLA CE contact hours

A good clinical question is integral to successful Evidence Based Medicine, as is a basic understanding of the types of studies one can look to for answers. Attendees of this three hour class will strengthen their ability to formulate well-structured, answerable research questions, using the PICO model, and develop a clear understanding of different study designs, including strengths and weaknesses. The class includes instructor presentation and lecture, readings, class discussion and exercises.

Please make plans to attend!
Liz Marvel, Program Committee Chair and President-Elect

Emory Hosts “Medical Treasures”

Vesalius_Fabrica_p163Atlanta’s Emory University is hosting an exhibit of material from the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library’s historical collection of artifacts and medical books, including a print of Andreas Vesalius’s “de humani corporis fabrica”.

An opening reception for the exhibition will be held at 5 p.m. on Friday, May 17, 2013.  The exhibit will be on display through October 2013.

Read more about the exhibit here.  The Library is located at 1462 Clifton Rd in Atlanta. Additional details such as directions, parking, hours and maps may be found here.