scholarly journals Developing an Online Consumer Health Course for Public Library Staff

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kiscaden ◽  
Carolyn Martin ◽  
Bobbi Newman ◽  
Margot Malachowski
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Consumer Health Information ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
National Network ◽  
Medical Library ◽  
Health Course ◽  
Midwest Region ◽  
Online Consumer ◽  
Library Staff

The National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Greater Midwest Region (NNLM GMR) received funding to support the evaluation and development of an asynchronous consumer health information course. Requirements of this project included: incorporating recommendations from NNLM instructors, National Library of Medicine staff and public library staff; piloting the revised course with a nationwide cohort; incorporating feedback from the pilot; and delivering a second instance of the revised course. The revised course meets existing requirements for public library certification and for Level 1 certification of the Medical Library Association’s Consumer Health Information Specialization.

Consumer Health Information Specialization (CHIS) Sponsorship Program Improves the Capacity of Public Library Staff to Provide Health Information to their Community

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kiscaden ◽  
Michele Spatz ◽  
Susan M Wolfe ◽  
Molly Knapp ◽  
Erica Lake
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Health Resources ◽  
Consumer Health Information ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
National Network ◽  
Medical Library ◽  
Library Staff ◽  
Health Information Resources ◽  
The Impact

In 2018, the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) launched a national sponsorship program to support U.S. library staff in obtaining the Medical Library Association (MLA) Consumer Health Information Specialization (CHIS). To evaluate the impact of the sponsorship program, staff developed and administered a 16-question assessment to 224 library staff sponsored in the first year of the program. The objective of this research project was to determine if 1) obtaining the specialization was successful in improving library staff ability to provide consumer health information, 2) sponsorship made obtaining the specialization possible, and 3) sponsorship resulted in recipients offering new health or wellness services, programming, or outreach activities at their library. The survey had a 61% response rate (n=136) and all respondents indicated that obtaining the specialization met their expectations. Over 80% of respondents reported an increase in knowledge of health information resources and over half offered new health information programs and services as a result of the sponsored training. Additionally, over 60% of respondents weeded or updated their library’s consumer health resources as a result of the training they received for the certificate. Respondents indicated that their intention to renew the CHIS certificate or obtain the more advanced, Level II specialization, was not certain. This research indicates that sponsorship of the certificate program was successful in increasing the capacity of public library staff to provide health information to their community.

scholarly journals Cultivating a community of practice: the evolution of a health information specialists program for public librarians

2017 ◽  
Vol 105 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shari Clifton ◽  
Phill Jo ◽  
Jean Marie Longo ◽  
Tara Malone
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Consumer Health Information ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
Health And Wellness ◽  
Medical Library ◽  
Level I

Background: To help improve the culture of health in Oklahoma—a state that frequently ranks poorly on multiple measures of health and wellness—faculty librarians from an academic health sciences library sought to create a collaborative network of health information professionals in Oklahoma’s public libraries through the implementation of the Health Information Specialists Program.Case Presentation: Health sciences librarians offered a variety of consumer health information courses for public library staff across the state of Oklahoma for three years. Courses were approved by the Medical Library Association for credit toward the Consumer Health Information Specialization. A total of seventy-two participants from public libraries attended the courses, sixty-five achieved a Level I Consumer Health Information Specialization, and nine went on to achieve Level II.Conclusions: Feedback from participants in the Health Information Specialists Program has indicated a positive impact on the health information expertise of participants, who in turn have used the knowledge that they gained to help their patrons.

scholarly journals Developing an Online Consumer Health Course for Public Library Staff

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-260
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kiscaden ◽  
Bobbi Newman ◽  
Margot Malachowski ◽  
Carolyn Martin
Keyword(s):  
Public Library ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
Health Course ◽  
Online Consumer ◽  
Library Staff

scholarly journals Reducing Negative Outcomes of Online Consumer Health Information: Qualitative Interpretive Study with Clinicians, Librarians, and Consumers (Preprint)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reem El Sherif ◽  
Pierre Pluye ◽  
Christine Thoër ◽  
Charo Rodriguez
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Family Physicians ◽  
Consumer Health Information ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
Negative Outcomes ◽  
Health Practitioners ◽  
Online Consumer ◽  
Inductive Thematic Analysis

BACKGROUND There has been an exponential increase in the general population’s usage of the internet and of information accessibility; the current demand for online consumer health information (OCHI) is unprecedented. There are multiple studies on internet access and usage, quality of information, and information needs. However, few studies explored negative outcomes of OCHI in detail or from different perspectives, and none examined how these negative outcomes could be reduced. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to describe negative outcomes associated with OCHI use in primary care and identify potential preventive strategies from consumers’, health practitioners’, and health librarians’ perspectives. METHODS This included a two-stage interpretive qualitative study. In the first stage, we recruited through a social media survey, a purposeful sample of 19 OCHI users who had experienced negative outcomes associated with OCHI. We conducted semistructured interviews and performed a deductive-inductive thematic analysis. The results also informed the creation of vignettes that were used in the next stage. In the second stage, we interviewed a convenient sample of 10 key informants: 7 health practitioners (3 family physicians, 2 nurses, and 2 pharmacists) and 3 health librarians. With the support of the vignettes, we asked participants to elaborate on (1) their experience with patients who have used OCHI and experienced negative outcomes and (2) what strategies they suggest to reduce these outcomes. We performed a deductive-inductive thematic analysis. RESULTS We found that negative outcomes of OCHI may occur at three levels: internal (such as increased worrying), interpersonal (such as a tension in the patient-clinician relationship), and service-related (such as postponing a clinical encounter). Participants also proposed three types of strategies to reduce the occurrence of these negative outcomes, namely, providing consumers with reliable OCHI, educating consumers on how to assess OCHI websites, and helping consumers present and discuss the OCHI they find with a health professional in their social network or a librarian for instance. CONCLUSIONS We examined negative outcomes associated with using OCHI from five complementary perspectives (consumers, family physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and health librarians). We identified a construct of OCHI use–related tension that included and framed all negative outcomes. This construct has three dimensions (three interdependent levels): internal, interpersonal, and service-related tensions. Future research can focus on the implementation and effectiveness of the proposed strategies, which might contribute to reducing these tensions.

scholarly journals Book Review: Promoting Individual and Community Health at the Library

2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Ellen Rubenstein
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
The United States ◽  
Consumer Health Information ◽  
Policy Statement ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
Institute Of Medicine ◽  
Medical Library ◽  
Patient Health

Interest in consumer health information has been steadily growing since the mid-twentieth century. As author Mary Grace Flaherty notes in her second chapter, Dr. Benjamin Spock published his book on baby care in 1946, and in 1973, the Boston Women’s Health Collective introduced Our Bodies, Ourselves; both of these supremely popular books offered accessible medical information to the general public and were revised and reprinted many times. In 1996, the Medical Library Association’s Consumer and Patient Health Information Section generated a policy statement addressing how librarians could be involved in facilitating access to consumer health information, and the Institute of Medicine began studying health care delivery in the United States, subsequently affirming that understandable consumer health information is integral to successful medical treatment.

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