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CHRC News
Vol. 1, No. 4, April 1999
MBLC Renews CHRC Contract
We are very pleased to announce that the
Massachusetts Board of Library
Commissioners (MBLC) has renewed its
contract with the Treadwell Library for
another year. This means that Treadwell
Library will continue to serve as the
Consumer Health Reference Center library
for members of the regional library systems
until at least June 30, 2000.
We at Treadwell would like to take this
opportunity to say ?Thank You? to those of
you who have used the CHRC services and
expressed your satisfaction to the MBLC.
CHRC Workshop - Metrowest
Due to popular demand (really!) the CHRC
has been invited back by the Metrowest
Massachusetts Regional Library System to
do an extra training workshop.
When: May 6th, from 9:30 am to 12:30pm
Where: Metrowest Massachusetts
Regional Library System
135 Beaver Street,
Waltham, MA 02452
Call 781-398-1819 for further details.
CHRC and MBLC at the Museum
of Science
The CHRC and the MBLC have been
invited to participate in a symposium
entitled Demystifying Cancer at the Museum
of Science on Saturday, April 10th. The
symposium is organized jointly by the
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical
Research, the Massachusetts General
Hospital, the Museum of Science and the
American Society of Law, Medicine &
Ethics (ASLME).
A free public lecture, Understanding
Cancer Research, will take place on the
Friday evening. The Saturday sessions
require registration which costs $10.
Speakers include Ivor Benjamin MD, Co-
Editor in Chief of Oncolink, who will talk
about Oncolink and cancer information on
the Internet, and Barrie Cassileth author of
the Alternative Medicine Handbook.
CHRC and MBLC will staff one of several
displays aimed at informing the general
public about the array of resources available
through libraries, hospital-based resource
centers, and government agencies.
For further details, check the symposium?s
web site at:
http://www.wi.mit.edu/bio/cancer/cancer.htm
Additional CHRC Email Address
CHRC now has two email addresses:
treadwellqanda@partners.org
treadwellqanda@partners.org
You can reach us at either of the above
email addresses. See last page for complete
contact information
Massachusetts Models
In the third article in our series,
Massachusetts Models, Nancy Fazzone
writes about the Consumer Health
Information collection at the North Shore
Medical Center. Nancy is a member of the
Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library
System (NMRLS).
The Beginning
With the opening of a new facility for its
Health Sciences Library in 1985, the North
Shore Medical Center (Salem Hospital)
allocated space for a Community Health
Information (CHI) collection. Drs. Patton
and Kaplan, esteemed members of the
Medical Staff, and their wives, both active
volunteers at the Hospital, provided funding.
Their vision, to provide health information
in lay terminology, has become an essential
part of the library. Health information for
the non-professional has also become a
requirement of the Joint Commission on
Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
(JCAHO), an essential part of the wellness
philosophy and a demand from consumers.
Public/Patients Invited
The library?s mission statement invites the
public to use its materials. Through its
newsletter and personal contact with health
care providers, the library staff encourages
physicians and others to refer patients and
the public to the library?s CHI collection.
The Collection
The CHI collection provides health
information endorsed by the medical
community, government agencies and
professional organizations, in lay
terminology for patients and the general
public.
The scope of the CHI collection focuses on
primary areas of treatment at the North
Shore Medical Center, and concentrates on
the following areas: AIDS, aging,
cardiology, cancer, diabetes, mental health,
nutrition, obstetrics, substance abuse,
wellness or health promotion and women?s
health.
Books (200+), newsletters (l5+ with 5 years
of back issues), and pamphlets (numerous)
comprise the print collection. Electronic
databases on CD ROM and through Internet
sites including the Health Reference Center
database, provide complementary resources
for the library staff to use in assisting
customers. Access to the library?s
computers is restricted to hospital personnel.
Services
The library staff provides full reference
support to satisfy requests. All information
related to personal health is provided free of
charge. A $10 fee is charged for
bibliographies needed for school
assignments or business use. While
materials do not circulate to non-employees,
duplicate copies of pamphlets may be taken
at no charge. A self-service photocopier is
available for 10 cents per page.
Hours
Open hours are Monday - Friday 8:00 a.m. -
4:30 p.m. and Saturday 10:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Staff
Nancy Fazzone, Director of Library Services
Sue Dhanjal, Associate Librarian
Maryann Papi, Librarian?s Assistant
Voice: (978) 741-1215 X4951
Fax: (978) 744-9110
E-mail: library@nsmc.partners.org
Massachusetts Models aims to introduce
CHRC News readers to consumer health
information services in Massachusetts and the
models of service they follow. If you would
like to submit an article for this series please
contact Kate Kelly at 617-726-8600.
CHRC Tip: The ERIC Database
Martha Stone, Coordinator for Reference
Services at Treadwell Library describes one
of the more unusual CHRC reference
questions and the resources she used to
answer it.
At the beginning of the school year, we
received a succinct request for information
on ?school phobia in adolescents?.
Certainly, this was an easy enough search
for the Medline database. After combining
the subject headings of Phobic Disorders,
Adolescence, and the word School in the
title, several references popped up, one of
which, from the April, 1998 issue of Journal
of the American Academy of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry, titled ?Cognitive-
Behavioral Treatment of School Phobia?
seemed quite relevant. In addition, the
Textbook of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
(American Psychiatric Press, 1997)
contained a half page on the subject of
?School Refusal?.
But wishing to leave no stone unturned, I
thought perhaps this query called for a
somewhat less medical approach. Enter
ERIC.
The ERIC database at
http://ericir.syr.edu/Eric/index.html contains,
to date, over 950,000 abstracts of documents
and articles from journal literature,
conference papers, reports, and other
materials having anything at all to do with
education.
Using the title word school, and the
keywords phobia and adolescent, I found 21
relevant articles; the first one was titled
?School Phobia in Adolescence?. Using the
keyword refusal instead of phobia, I
retrieved 18 documents, the first of which
was ?Factors Associated with School
Refusal in Adolescents?. (Interestingly, that
article?s abstract begins, ?School refusal, as
differentiated from both school phobia and
truancy, is a term used to denote
emotionally-based avoidance of school.? )
There is more information about obtaining
ERIC documents at
http://www.accesseric.org:81/; or you can
call ERIC?s toll-free number, 1-800-LET-
ERIC.
National Library of Medicine
(NLM) Consumer Health
Initiatives: MEDLINEplus
http://wwww.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus
MEDLINEplus is the National Library of
Medicine?s newest electronic information
source providing health information for
consumers. It was launched on October 22,
1998, in conjunction with a new health
education initiative involving public libraries
(see below). Highlights of MEDLINEplus
include the following:
HEALTH TOPICS - This is the most
heavily used section of MEDLINEplus.
Consumers can choose from a list of 70
common diseases and conditions ranging
from AIDS to weight loss and be connected
to online publications, fact sheets, support
groups, clinical trials, organizations and
other sources of information including
?canned? searches of Medline using
PubMed.
DICTIONARIES - several medical
dictionaries including the AMA?s Medical
Glossary.
SEARCH DATABASES - a very useful
page that pulls together databases from
NLM, National Institutes of Health (NIH)
and other federal sources. Some of the
lesser known databases available on this
page are the Alcohol and Alcohol Problems
Science database (ETOH), the NIH Clinical
Trials databases and the Office of Rare
Diseases? Clinical Research Database.
Other sections on MEDLINEplus are
Organizations, Clearinghouses, Publications,
Directories and Libraries. This new
resource is a work in progress and it will be
worth checking back regularly to see what
has been added.
National Library of Medicine
(NLM) Consumer Health
Initiatives: NLM teams with public
libraries to help consumers find
medical answers
In another initiative also launched in
October, 1998, NLM announced that 39
public library organizations with over 200
locations in nine states and D.C. will take
part in a pilot project designed to increase
public awareness of, and access to, health
information via the Internet. The states are
Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, New York,
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee,
Texan and Virginia.
The project, titled ?Medical Questions?
MEDLINE has Answers? will evaluate the
degree to which public libraries and the
Internet can help meet the information needs
of the public and determine the feasibility of
mounting these programs in public libraries
nationwide. A complete list of participating
libraries can be found at:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/press_releases/
medplus.html
New Resources
CHI Services Column
National Network, the newsletter of the
Hospital Libraries Section of the Medical
Library Association, has a new Consumer
Health Services column. The column, CHI
Services, began in the January, 1999 issue
with an article on volunteers and will be a
regular feature in National Network from
now on.
Consumer and Patient Health
Information Section (CAPHIS) of the
Medical Library Association:
CAPHIS has a new web address:
http://caphis.njc.org
The site has also been updated and revised.
New additions include:
Finding it on the Web: a guide to finding
and evaluating information on women?s
health on the Internet at
http://caphis.njc.org/Finding.html
and an updated Consumer Health
Bibliography for the Small Public Library
at http://caphis.njc.org/ConsHealthBib.html
Non-English Language Resources:
Rees, Alan. Informacion de Salud para los
Consumidores. Oryx Press. 1998 $74.95.
ISBN 1573561665.
This new book by Alan Rees, author of the
Consumer Health Information Source
Book, Oryx Press, 1998, is a compilation of
consumer health and patient education
information available in Spanish. The
materials are from federal and state agencies,
health associations, pharmaceutical
companies and other health related
organizations. It includes approximately
300 publications from about 50 sources.
Note: This book does not have an English
language index, but all is not lost because
Kate Smith of the Family Health Library at
Children?s Hospital, Denver has very kindly
posted one on the CAPHIS website at
http://caphis.njc.org/ReesSpanish.html
The Center for Applied Linguistics has
announced the second edition of the
Multilingual Health Education Resource
Guide. The Guide lists health education
materials on nine topics (hepatitis B,
HIV/AIDS, STDS, tuberculosis, breast
health, dental care, family planning,
immunization, and prenatal care) in ten
languages (Arabic, Bosnian/Serbo Croatian,
Cambodian/Khmer, Haitian Creole/French,
Hmong, Lao, Russian, Somali, Spanish and
Vietnamese). Price $7.00, prepayment
required. For more information contact:
Kathleen M. Marcos
Center for Applied Linguistics
1118 22nd Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20037
Tel: 800-276-9834 or Fax: 202-659-5641
Email: kathleen@cal.org
National Guideline Clearinghouse:
http://www.guideline.gov
The National Guideline Clearinghouse
(NGC) is a new web based resource for up-
to-date evidence-based clinical practice
guidelines sponsored by the Agency for
Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR)
in partnership with the American Medical
Association and the American Association
of Health Plans.
The NGC database contains evidence-based
clinical practice guidelines as defined by the
Institute of Medicine:
"Clinical practice guidelines are
systematically developed statements to
assist practitioner and patient decisions
about appropriate health care for specific
clinical circumstances.?
Guidelines have been drawn from numerous
sources such as the American Academy of
Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric
Association, and the American Heart
Association. So check it out to find
recommended treatments or prevention
measures for disorders ranging from low
back pain to osteoporosis to skin cancer.
You can either search the database or
browse by disease/condition or treatment.
Food Safety
With all the recent news reports about
pesticide residues in food it seemed timely to
list a few resources for this topic.
The Massachusetts Department of Public
Health Food Protection Program
http://www.state.ma.us/dph/fpp/fpp.htm
The Food Protection Program (FPP) has a
revised and updated web site with links to
food safety sheets, FPP programs, Boards of
Health, and FPP publications.
FoodSafety.gov
http://www.FoodSafety.gov/
This is the gateway to government food
safety information. Here you will find news
and safety alerts, consumer advice,
information pertinent to kids, teens and
educators, information on foodborne
pathogens, food safety initiatives and much
more.
Consumers Union Food Safety Index
http://www.consunion.org/food/food.htm
Consumers Union publishes Consumer
Reports as well as a recent food pesticide
residue report that received much media
attention. Their food index is a listing of
reports, press releases, and news items
published by the Consumers Union in
response to various FDA, EPA, USDA
initiatives and commentary on food safety
issues listed by topic.
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CHRC Contact Information
Tel: 1-877-MEDI-REF (1-877-633-4733)
or 617-726-8600
Fax: 617-726-6784
E-mail:
treadwellqanda@partners.org
or treadwellqanda@partners.org
Consumer Health Reference Center
Treadwell Library
Bartlett Hall Extension 1
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, MA 02114.
http://www.mgh.harvard.edu/library/chrcindex.html
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