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Library Services
For Health Care Providers
For more information please contact AHEC Librarian, Clair Birkman.
On-Line Resources for Clinicians:
The National Library of Medicine
The National Library of Medicine is the world's largest medical library. Through
the Web at www.nlm.nih.gov some 750 million searches of MEDLINE are done
each year by health professionals, scientists, librarians, and the public.
Databases of special note for the clinician include PubMed, a database of over
16 million citations from some 4,500 biomedical journals; PubMed Central, a
digital archive of life sciences journal literature; ClinicalTrials.gov, which
allows for easy access to information on clinical trials for a wide range of
diseases and conditions; and MEDLINEplus, a patient health resource providing
authoritative and up-to-date medical information for the consumer. All National
Library of Medicine databases are free.
PubMed
PubMed provides access to bibliographic information that includes MEDLINE, the
NLM's premier bibliographic database covering the fields of medicine, nursing,
dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical
sciences. MEDLINE contains bibliographic citations and author abstracts from
more than 4,800 biomedical journals published in the United States and 70 other
countries. The database contains over 14 million citations dating back to the
mid-1960s.
National Network of Libraries of Medicine
The mission of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) is to
advance the progress of medicine and improve the public health by providing all
U.S. health professionals with equal access to biomedical information and
improving the public's access to information to enable them to make informed
decisions about their health. The Program is coordinated by the National Library
of Medicine and carried out through a nationwide network of health science
libraries and information centers.
Clinical Guidelines:
National Guidelines Clearinghouse
The National Guidelines Clearinghouse is a service of the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services. This searchable database provides evidence-based
clinical guidelines. Additionally, the site includes links to updates to
guidelines, based on recommendations of relevant professional organizations,
current information from the Healthy People 2010 project and updates from the
2005 National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR) including the State Resources
and the 2005 National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR). To access these
resources, visit: www.guidelines.gov.
The Community Health Association of Mountain/Plains States (CHAMPS)
The mission of Community Health Association of Mountain/Plains States (CHAMPS)
is to provide a coordinating structure of service to Community Health Centers
and Primary Care Associations in Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota,
Utah and Wyoming.
CHAMPS has compiled several resources to support clinicians in accessing
appropriate guidelines for treating their patients. In addition to
evidence-based clinical guidelines, links offered on the CHAMPS site include
preventive medicine procedures posters and patient education tools. You can
access these links at:
www.champsonline.org/tools/ClinicalResources/default.asp.
Colorado Clinical Guidelines Collaborative
The Colorado Clinical Guidelines Collaborative (CCGC) is a coalition of health
plans, physicians, hospitals, employers, government agencies, quality
improvement organizations, and other entities working together to implement
systems and processes, using evidence-based clinical guidelines, to improve
healthcare in Colorado. Guidelines for a variety of medical conditions can be
found at: www.coloradoguidelines.org/guidelines.html.
Patient information handouts are also available at: www.coloradoguidelines.org/patient.html.
For more information on the development of clinical practice guidelines, visit
the University of California, San Francisco’s Department of Medicine’s
introductory page at medicine.ucsf.edu/resources/guidelines/users.html.
Health Information Literacy:
According to the American Medical Association, health literacy is defined as
“the ability to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and
services needed to make appropriate health decisions and follow instructions
for treatment.” People from all walks of life may encounter challenges in
this regard. Listed below are several resources designed to help health care
providers assist their patients in accessing and understanding the information
they need to support good health:
www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/8115.html
nnlm.gov/outreach/consumer/hlthlit.html#definition
www.hrsa.gov/culturalcompetence/
www.aelweb.vcu.edu/publications/healthlit/
For Patients/Consumers:
MEDLINEplus
Created and maintained by the National Library of Medicine, this service
provides access to extensive information about specific diseases and conditions
and also has links to consumer health information from the National Institutes
of Health, dictionaries, lists of hospitals and physicians, health information
in Spanish and other languages, and clinical trials. There is no advertising on
this site, nor does MEDLINEplus endorse any company or product.
Healthfinder
healthfinder® is a free gateway to reliable consumer health and human services
information developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
healthfinder® can lead you to selected online publications, clearinghouses,
databases, web sites, and support and self-help groups, as well as the
government agencies and not-for-profit organizations that produce reliable
information for the public.
NOAH (New York Online Access to Health)
A service of the New York Public Library, NOAH seeks to provide high quality
full-text health information for consumers that is accurate, timely, relevant
and unbiased. NOAH currently supports English and Spanish.
KidsHealth
KidsHealth is one of the largest sites on the Web providing health information
about children from before birth through adolescence. Created by the Nemours
Foundation Center for Children’s Health Media, the KidsHealth site has separate
areas for kids, teens and parents – each with its own design, age-appropriate
content and tone.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Health topics A to Z
Health Topics A to Z provides a listing of disease and health topics found on
the CDC Web site. In addition to the more common health topics, more esoteric
health concerns are covered as well. Because various Centers produce the
information, format and areas covered differ with each subject.
National Health Information Center
The National Health Information Center (NHIC) is a health information referral
service. NHIC puts health professionals and consumers who have health questions
in touch with the appropriate organizations that are best able to provide
answers. NHIC was established in 1979 by the Office of Disease Prevention and
Health Promotion, Department of Health and Human Services. A directory of
toll-free health information phone numbers is available at this site along with
a listing of federal health information and clearinghouses.
Reuters Health eLine
Reuters Health eLine is a consumer-oriented medical news service. The focus of
the service is clinically relevant healthcare news featuring stories on men,
women and children’s health, diet, exercise, treatment advances and disease
management. Approximately 15 stories per day are added to the service.
Archives are available through a search interface.
U.S. Pharmacopoeia Drug Information/Advice for the Patient
A guide to more than 9,000 prescriptions and over-the-counter medication
provided by the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) in the USP DI® and Advice for
the Patient®.
FDA Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition
This web site provides a wide variety of information on a number of different
topics, including food-borne illness, food labeling and nutrition, cosmetics,
pesticides and biotechnology as it relates to food. Other types of information
provided include news of food safety warnings and outbreaks of food-borne
illness, White House statements and Congressional testimony, Federal Register
notices, and text of FDA regulations. The site offers information of use to
consumers, health professionals, and those involved in the food industry.
Community Health Status Indicators Project
The CHSI Reports include data collected by the Health Resources and Services
Administration. Topics covered include the leading cause of deaths in a
community, the actual and expected number of infectious disease cases, as well
as the rate of medical care coverage in a specific county. Locate information
on a county’s population size and racial demographics and compare its statistics
to that of a peer county with an equivalent population size, density, age
distribution and poverty level.
For more information please contact AHEC Librarian, Clair Birkman.
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