The Outreach Evaluation Resource Center provides assistance in developing well-planned evaluation to help target and measure outreach success.
According to Ginger Saha, OHIONET has negotiated many database packages for OhioLINK and the California state system. OHIONET also has some ejournal offerings where they offer reduced pricing for interested libraries. The contact at OHIONET who arranges these deals is Mary Mlynar Conroy, 800-686-8975 or mconroy@ohionet.org.
UW Stout has an Outreach Clearinghouse for the campus. This is an interesting idea that could possibly be adapted for the U or for Minnesota health sciences libraries.
From 1997-2001, the Bio-Medical Library managed a NLM grant called Health Information Access for Rural Nurse Practitioners. The purpose was to eliminate distance and other barriers to health information encountered by nurse practitioner students living in rural areas. The project included loaning laptops to nurse practitioner students, providing training, offering financial support for local Internet access, and document delivery.
Excerpts from the grant application:
"Health care providers in rural, medically underserved areas also have limited access to health science information. Further, attracting primary care providers to rural underserved and shortage areas is problematic due to the isolation from colleagues and lack of access to current health information."
"Library service to remote sites has concerned librarians for years and new initiatives are discussed in the literature."
Tri-County Hospital in Wadena received a National Library of Medicine Access to Digital Libraries grant. They subcontracted with the Bio-Medical Library to provide training to hospital staff. The hospital is a 49-bed facility in Wadena with three satellite Rural Health Clinics. The hospital's library consists of some books and one journal (JAMA) in print with some archives on CD-ROM.
Relevant excerpts from the grant application:
"Tri-County Hospital expects digital connectivity to assist in supporting the scarce human resources of healthcare providers and professional practicing in the Wadena, MN rural environment. Reducing isolation and increasing access to high quality databases through technology applications will have a positive impact on recruitment, retention, and every-day decision making for the rural setting."
"Rural healthcare facilities face challenges to providing high quality services that can be partially met by using technology applications successfully and through meaningful collaborations."
The NN/LM has issued a RFP for Access to Electronic Health Information projects. Single institutions can apply for $10,000. A group of two or more institutions can apply for $40,000.
The focus in on projects designed to improve access to electronic health information for such groups and organizations as consumers, underserved and minority health care professionals, public health workers, public library, and community-based and faith-based organizations.
MLA has an Outreach Special Interest Group. Notes from recent meetings are available online.
freely available products like PubMed, MedlinePlus, Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, Merck Veterinary Manual, etc.
ALOUD (ACRL, Academic Library Outreach Discussion Group)
GMR Outreach_Eval Discussion List
Academic Health Center Outreach
Building on Partnerships, 2004 community report
Health Talk and You (community outreach initiative)
Public Health Education and Outreach
School of Dentistry Outreach Activities
OHSU provides extensive resources for unaffiliated health care professionals, including accounts for Ovid databases, Harrison's Online, Stat!Ref, and some books licensed for Oregon nurses.
OHSU Full-Text Resources for Oregon Nurses
Harrison's Online Signup Form for Licensed Oregon Health Care Practitioners
Minnesota Health Organizations
Listing of MN Health Organizations
Yahoo listing of MN Health Organizations
Minnesota Medical Association Health Organization Links
Minnesota Rural Health Association
Rural Health Research Center, U of M
Publications and Newsletters from the Minnesota Department of Health's Office of Rural Health and Primary Care.
Minnesota and National Professional Associations
There are many health sciences libraries that have reputations for strong outreach programs. This list includes but is not limited to:
University of Virginia Outreach Librarians
University of Utah Outreach Services
The is a five-year project to bring the nation's public libraries the latest information about biomedical research.
Healthy People Library Project
The Healthy People Library Project provides a page of outreach tips for librarians, along with outreach case studies.
Health Outreach Tips for Librarians
The Greensboro AHEC provides certain services to GAHEC Health Professionals, defined as practicing health care professionals who live and practice in the 9 county area of Greensboro AHEC. Services are also available to health care preceptors. Eligible health agencies can apply to become affiliated as library contact agencies.
Hardin Library at the U of Iowa has released a website aimed at providing a one-stop resource for Iowa public health professionals. The site was built using suggestions from practicing public health professionals. It includes Iowa county and state level information, as well as information from authoritative government sources. The site is designed to be a model for other states and the database structure is available at no charge to other institutions for this purpose.
The Greater Midwest Region of the NN/LM has prepared funding resources, including advice for writing proposals.
The Healthy People Library Project provides a page about funding resources for health outreach.
Health Outreach Funding Resources
Current RFPs in the Greater Midwest Region, NN/LM
Marshall, Joanne. A review of health sciences library outreach and evaluation.
Burroughs, Catherine. Success with outreach: setting goals and objectives. Dragonfly Fall 2000.
The South Central Region of the NN/LM has an online outreach manual.
Denison Memorial Library, UCHSC, provides services for unaffiliated healthcare organizations. Emphasis is on freely available resources; some library services require a fee.
Services for Healthcare Organizations, UCHSC
The U of Utah provides library services to affiliated off-campus faculty and unaffiliated health care providers (defined as those who don't have access to library services at their own institutiton). These services are provided in partnership with the Utah Medical Association, Utah AHEC, Utah Telehealth Network, and Utah Department of Health.
U of Utah Outreach to Utah Health Professionals
The UK Medical Center Library provides a page of outreach resources for health professionals. Links are to freely available resources, along with resources restricted to UK students, staff, faculty, and community-based faculty (preceptors).
UK Medical Center Library Outreach Resources for Health Professionals
HealthInfoIowa includes a section for Healthcare Providers. Links are to freely available resources. HealthInfoIowa also includes resources for students, tutorials, Iowa health resources, and general health resources.
HealthInfoIowa for Healthcare Providers
UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas provides limited privileges to local health care providers. This includes but is not limited to doctors, dentists, veterinarians, chiropractors, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, nurses, and psychologist. Registered clients are entitled to a library card and borrowing privileges, literature searches (for a fee), ILL (for a fee), and Loansome Doc. Local health care professionals are invited to use OVID and other library resources in the library.
Local Health Care Professionals, UT Southwestern
Taubman Medical Library (U of Michigan) provides information for unaffiliated health care professionals, including library services and freely available major online resources of interest to health care practitioners. Some library services involve a fee.
Resources for Unaffiliated Health Care Professionals, U of Michigan
UTHSCSA provides services for area health care professionals. This includes doctors, dentists, nurses, and other licensed health care practitioners who live or work in the county. Upon registration, they may access books and AV materials, OVID (remote access for $100/year), ILL, online search services (for a fee), photocopy services (for a fee), and typewriters.
UTHSCSA Area Health Care Professionals
The Electronic Health Library of BC is an initiative of the BC Academic Health Council to explore the potential for expanding access to electronic library resources to all interested health agencies, professional associations, and post-secondary educational institutions in BC. It will also investigate the feasibility of negotiating province-wide licenses to access these resources.
Goals include improving health outcomes and enhancing quality of care, recruting and retaining health professionals, meeting the needs of medical student training, supporting student learning across the province, and supporting health research.
Principles of the project include simplifying access, eliminating duplication of resources, and maximizing access and minimizing costs.
Electronic Health Library of BC
Examples of outreach projects submitted to NLM for the National Medical Librarians' Month are available online, including four from the Greater Midwest Region.
Outreach Examples, National Medical Librarians' Month
The MidContinental Region of the NN/LM announces the launch of the "Bringing Health Information to the Community" blog. Information posted to this blog includes conferences, grants, articles, minority health concerns, rural health concerns, and more of interest to community-based organizations that include health as part of their outreach. Sign up to receive an e-mail every time an item is posted to the blog.
Bringing Health Information to the Community