Looking for summaries of the best current evidence for healthcare decision making? Cochrane Evidence may have a report on a topic of interest

Cochrane reviews are systematic reviews of primary research of human health care. They are systematic because they review ALL the available journal articles to answer a specific question.. Each systematic review can take up to 2 years and includes at least 2 people.
An example of a question would be
Can antibiotics help in alleviating the symptoms of a sore throat?
Cochrane Reviews do not answer every healthcare question, but they currently have several thousand reviews answering specific questions.

Cochrane Evidence has plain language summaries of the above reviews.
““Cochrane summarizes the findings so people making important decisions – you, your doctor, the people who write medical guidelines – can use unbiased information to make difficult choices without having to first read every study out there…” 
Sifting the evidence, The Guardian, 14 September 2016

Public Health Consequences of E-Cigarettes : A Systematic Review of Biomedical Literature

This report is a comprehensive and systematic review of the literature that evaluates the evidence about e-cigarettes and health. It highlighting gaps that are a priority for future research, and makes recommendations to improve the quality of this research.

The report is by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine.

A few excerpts from the report

   “Because e-cigarettes have only been on the U.S. market for a relatively brief time— rst imported in 2006, most have entered the market much more recently—it is dif cult to scienti cally compare their health effects to those of combustible tobacco cigarettes, whose health effects were not fully apreciated until after decades of use. However, in contrast to long-term effects, research on short-term health effects of e-cigarettes is now available.

The committee evaluated the current state of knowl- edge on outcomes including dependence and abuse liability, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, respiratory diseases, oral diseases, reproductive and developmen- tal effects, and injuries and poisonings.

Overall, the evidence reviewed by the commit- tee suggests that e-cigarettes are not without biological effects in humans. For instance, use of e-cigarettes results in dependence on the devices, though with apparently less risk and severity than that of combustible tobacco cigarettes. Yet the implications for long-term effects on morbidity and mortality are not yet clear.”

…

CONCLUSION

Although e-cigarettes are not without risk, compared to combustible tobacco cigarettes they contain fewer toxicants; can deliver nicotine in a similar manner; show signi cantly less biological activity in most, but not all, in vitro, animal, and human systems; and might be useful as a cessation aid in smokers who use e-ciga- rettes exclusively. However, young people who begin with e-cigarettes are more likely to transition to com- bustible cigarette use and become smokers who are at risk to suffer the known health burdens of combustible tobacco cigarettes. The net public health outcome of e-cigarette use depends on the balance between pos- itive and negative consequences.

More and better research is needed to help clarify whether e-cigarettes will prove to reduce harm—or induce harm—at the individual and the population levels. The approach taken by the committee to eval- uate the health effects of e-cigarettes in this report is anticipated to provide a generalizable template for future evaluations of the evidence.

Full text of the report may be found here

Analyzing the Life Cycle of Chemicals

From a page from the US EPA

EPA is combining different types of data to characterize impacts of chemicals to human health and the environment. The research provides accessible information to support scientific discovery and sustainable decisions. EPA researchers are using scientific advances to identify chemical characteristics and features that are associated with potential for environmental and human health impacts.

The research is generating chemical, biological and toxicological information to advance the understanding of relationships between chemical characteristics and potential impacts of use. This research will help EPA and others evaluate these chemicals prior to use to ensure they are the most effective and safest chemicals to use.

Our research analyzing the life cycle of chemicals focuses on four areas:

• Nanoparticles and emerging materials;
• Sustainable chemistry;
• Environmental and human health impacts of chemical use across the chemical/product life cycle; and
• Ecological modeling.

Nanoparticles and Emerging Materials

• Nanomaterials Research

Sustainable Chemistry

• Distributed Structure-Searchable Toxicity (DSSTox) Database Network
• Environmental Fate Simulator: Forecasting how chemicals move in the environment

Environmental and human health impacts of chemical use across the chemical/product life cycle

EPA is developing ways to efficiently evaluate environmental and human health impacts of chemical use across the chemical/product life cycle to support sustainability analysis, assessment of chemical alternatives and to help inform risk-based decisions.

• Life Cycle Perspective
• Life Cycle Resources
• Life Cycle Tool: Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and Other Environmental Impacts
• Program for Assisting the Replacement of Industrial Solvents (PARIS III)

Ecological Modeling

EPA evaluates the risk of pesticide use to threatened and endangered species. This research is using population effects and spatial distribution to develop ecological risk models to predict potential risk to ecological systems and the environment.

• Markov Chain Nest Productivity Model: estimates the impact of pesticide exposures on the reproduction success of bird populations.
• Web Ice: estimates acute toxicity to aquatic and terrestrial organisms for use in risk assessment.
• EcoTox: Provides information on adverse effects of single chemical stressors to ecologically relevant aquatic and terrestrial species. It includes more than 780,000 test records covering 12,000 aquatic and terrestrial species and 11,000 chemicals.

Contact Us to ask a question, provide feedback, or report a problem.

[Research Journal] PLAID – People Living with and Inspired by Diabetes

PLAID (People Living with and Inspired by Diabetes) is an open access, peer-reviewed interdisciplinary research journal focused on people living with and inspired by diabetes.

Via an email from someone who subscribes to this blog. (Thank you for sharing news about this!)

PLAID: People Living with and Inspired by Diabetes. It is kind of unique in that it is trying to bridge the gap between physicians and patients. It is trying to get conversations started as well as provide access to new research in the diabetes community. Here is the link to its website: http://theplaidjournal.com/index.php/CoM

Health videos for some frequently asked questions (with additional related resources)

No, this is not from the Mercy hospital system here in Toledo. However, the Health Library at Mercy Health is a good resource for consumer  questions on topics ranging from “what causes wheezing?” to “tracking your blood pressure at home”,  or even something along the lines of  what’s “the difference between a cold and the flu” .
Related resources

Consumer/Patient

• Videos and Cool Tools (MedlinePlus) has consumer level links to videos on topics such as human anatomy, surgical procedures and health news.
• Medical Animation Library (Penn State) From MedlinePlus, but sorted by medical specialty

Health Professional

• Video Center for Medical Professionals (Mayo Clinic) features select Grand Rounds lectures and other presentations for medical professionals on recent innovations in patient care, research and education. Watch videos describing advances in disease and condition treatment, procedures and surgeries. New presentations are added regularly.
• Proquest Nursing and Allied Health Source Select Advanced Search and limit with Audio and Video works 
• JOVE- Journal of Visualized Experiments (2006-2 years ago)

• A few from  the Univ of Toledo Medical Laboratory Science -Images and Videos LibGuide page by Librarian Wade Lee – check it out for many more links, including narrower topics asparasitology,hematology, and pathology.
  • Clinical Key Videos
    Videos taken from electronic texts available through ClinicalKey. Use the term video in the initial search, as video AND brain. (For some reason the term brain alone does not produce any video results). Then limit the results by selecting videos under Filter by source type: videos. Also check out Procedures Consult (limit to videos).
  • Health Education Assets Library (HEAL)
    A digital library that provides freely accessible digital teaching resources of the highest quality that meet the needs of today’s health sciences educators and learners. Search the collection using phrases as –> videos AND brain\
    
  • AccessMedicine
    Videos taken from electronic texts available through AccessMedicine. Select Videos by Category or Videos by System under the Multimedia tab.
  • Open-i
    Image search engine from the National Library of Medicine. Includes limits by imaging type [as videos] , medical specialty, etc. Can also search by image.
    http://openi.nlm.nih.gov/detailedresult.php?img=3232527_IPC-6-1-g008&query=lung&it=xg&vid=1&req=4&npos=28
• From the Univ of Toledo Videos LibGuide by Librarian Wade Lee
  On the Health Science Campus, the Library maintains most of its multimedia collection on reserve at the Mulford Access Services Desk.  It is best to search for this material in the UT Library Catalog and select Health Sci Lib and AUDIOVISUAL” or “DIGITAL VIDEO” or “DVD/VIDEOCASSETTE” from the search drop-down menus.

[Press release] NLM Releases RxClass Drug Class Application. NLM Technical Bulletin. 2014 Sep–Oct

NLM Releases RxClass Drug Class Application. NLM Technical Bulletin. 2014 Sep–Oct.

From the 22 October 2014 press release

RxClass is a new application from researchers in the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications (LHNCBC) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). RxClass allows users to search and browse drug classes and their RxNorm drug members through a simple Web interface (see Figure 1). Unlike RxNav, a related application from NLM LHNCBC which focuses on browsing and searching individual RxNorm drugs, RxClass provides a class-centric view of the drug information in RxNorm.

Figure 1: RxClass Homepage.

Drug Class Sources
RxClass includes drug classes from the following data sources:

• ATC – The Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) drug classification is a resource developed for pharmacoepidemiology purposes by the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Drug Statistics Methodology.
• MeSH – The Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), developed by NLM, provides a rich description of pharmacological actions for the purpose of indexing and retrieval of biomedical articles.
• NDFRT – The National Drug File-Reference Terminology (NDFRT), developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), provides clinical information about drugs, such as therapeutic intent and mechanism of action.RxClass includes six sets ofNDFRT drug classes:
  1. Established Pharmacologic Classes (EPC)
  2. Chemical Structure (Chem)
  3. Disease
  4. Mechanism of Action (MoA)
  5. Physiologic Effect (PE)
  6. Pharmacokinetics (PK)

Drug Class Relationship Sources
RxClass includes five sources which assert relationships between drugs and drug classes from ATC, MeSH, and NDFRT:

1. ATC – provides relationships between ATC drugs and ATC drug classes.
2. MeSH – provides relationships between MeSH drugs and MeSH pharmacologic actions.
3. DailyMed – provides relationships between substances in DailyMed Structured Product Labels (SPLs) and NDFRT EPC, Chem, MoA, and PE classes.
4. NDFRT – provides relationships between NDFRT drug concepts and NDFRT Chem, Disease, MoA, PE, and PK classes.
5. FDA SPL – provides relationships between NDFRT drug concepts mapped to DailyMed SPL substances and NDFRT EPC, Chem, MoA, and PE classes.

Drug Source
RxClass includes drugs from the sources mentioned above, which are mapped to ingredients (IN), precise ingredients (PIN), and multiple ingredients (MIN) in RxNorm. RxNorm is a normalized naming system for generic and branded drugs developed by NLM to allow computer systems in hospitals, pharmacies, and other organizations to communicate drug-related information efficiently and unambiguously.

Browse Drug Classes
RxClass provides a simple tree browser for navigating through drug class hierarchies. You can click on the orange arrow next to a class to reveal its subclasses in the tree. Clicking on the name of a drug class populates the results area under the search box with the members of that class, if applicable, and the name, source identifier, class type, and contexts for that class (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: RxClass Class Browser. Navigate drug classes by clicking the arrows or class names.

Search by Drug Class/RxNorm Drug
RxClass also provides access to drug classes and their RxNorm drug members through a simple search box (see Figure 3). You can search RxClass by:

1. Drug class name or source identifier
2. RxNorm drug name or RxNorm identifier (RXCUI)

For drug classes and RxNorm drugs in multiple contexts, RxClass presents all of the contexts, allowing you to select the desired drug class context to populate the results area.

Figure 3: Search RxClass by drug class or RxNorm drug name.

Results Display
When browsing or searching RxClass, the results display is populated with the drug class you selected and the RxNorm drugs that belong to the class (see Figure 4). For each RxNorm drug, RxClass displays the:

• Type (RxNorm term type)
• RXCUI
• RxNorm Name
• Source ID (Unique identifier from drug class source)
• Source Name (Name from drug class source)
• Relation (Relationship between the drug and the selected drug class (direct or indirect))
• All classes (All drug classes of which this drug is also a member)

Figure 4: RxClass results display: Shows RxNorm and drug class source data for your results.

Application Programming Interface (API)
Behind the RxClass Web application is a set of API functions. The RxClass API can be used independently for integrating drug class information into programs.

See the RxClass Overview and RxClass FAQ for more information about browsing and searching drug classes on RxClass. An RxClass turorial is forthcoming.

For questions, comments or feedback about these resources, please contact us at rxnavinfo@list.nih.gov.

By Patrick McLaughlin
MEDLARS Management Section

Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce – Great site to learn and keep updated about issues afffecting all

Keeps you informed about news in public health, upcoming meetings, and new public health online resources

Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce  is a  collaboration of U.S. government agencies, public health organizations and health sciences libraries.  This comprehensive collection of online public health resources includes the following topic pages. Each has links to news items; links to relevant agencies, associations, and subtopics; literature and reports; data tools and statistics; grants and funding; education and training; conferences and meetings; jobs and careers;  and more

• Environmental Health
• Nutrition
• Obesity
• Public Health Genomics
• Workforce Development

Main Topic pages include material on

 

• Health Promotion and Health Education -news and resources
• Health Data Tools and Statistics-  links to international,  national, state, county and local data resources
• Grants and Funding
• Education and Training -many free and online
• Conferences and Meetings
• Finding People – directories of people and organizations in public health.
• Discussion and E-mail Lists
• Jobs and Careers

 

 

 

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• Library Research Service | Research And Statistics About Libraries

Recent additions to the NLM Drug Information Portal include clinical experience with drugs and dietary supplements

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the NLM-TOX-ENVIRO-HEALTH-L Digest – 2 Oct 2014 to 7 Oct 2014 (#2014-19)

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) Drug Information Portal (http://druginfo.nlm.nih.gov) is a free web resource that provides an informative, user–friendly gateway to current drug information for over 53,000 substances. The Portal links to sources from the NLM, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other government agencies such as the U.S. FDA.

Current information regarding consumer health, clinical trials, AIDS–related drug information, MeSH® pharmacological actions, PubMed® biomedical literature, and physical properties and structure is easily retrieved by searching a drug name. A varied selection of focused topics in medicine and drug–related information is also available from displayed subject headings.

The Drug Portal retrieves by the generic or trade name of a drug or its category of usage.  Records provide a description of how the drug is used, its chemical structure and nomenclature, and include up to 20 Resource Locators which link to more information in other selected resources.   Recent additions to these Locators include clinical experience with drugs in PubMed Health (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth), substances reviewed in NLM LiverTox (http://livertox.nih.gov/), information from the Dietary Supplement Label Database (http://dsld.nlm.nih.gov/dsld/), and drug images in the Pillbox beta (http://pillbox.nlm.nih.gov/) database.

Data in the Drug Information Portal is updated daily, and is also available on mobile devices.

More information can be found at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/druginfoportalfs.html

Related articles

• NLM Technical Bulletin, Sep-Oct 2014, NLM Resource Update: Drug Information Portal
• Recent additions to the NLM Drug Information Portal include clinical experience with drugs and dietrary supplement information

Drugs From Nature, Then and Now – Medicines By Design

 

From the article at the US National Institutes of Health,  last reviewed on October 27, 2011

Chapter 3: Drugs From Nature, Then and Now – Medicines By Design – Science Education – National Institute of General Medical Sciences

Long before the first towns were built, before written language was invented, and even before plants were cultivated for food, the basic human desires to relieve pain and prolong life fueled the search for medicines. No one knows for sure what the earliest humans did to treat their ailments, but they probably sought cures in the plants, animals, and minerals around them.

[The table of contents]

• Nature’s Medicine Cabinet
• Natural Cholesterol-Buster
• Cancer Therapy Sees the Light
• Ocean Medicines
• Miracle Cures
• Prospecting Biology?

• Tweaking Nature
• Toxicogenetics: Poisons and Your Genes
• Is It Chemistry or Genetics?
• Blending Science
• Testing..I, II, III
• Got It? 

  ………

…Crews is among a new breed of researchers delving into a growing scientific area called chemical genetics (see main text). Taking this approach, scientists use chemistry to attack biological problems that traditionally have been solved through genetic experiments such as the genetic engineering of bacteria, yeast, and mice. Crews’ goal is to explore how natural products work in living systems and to identify new targets for designing drugs. He has discovered how an inflammation-fighting ingredient in the medicinal herb feverfew may work inside cells.

He found that the ingredient, called parthenolide, appears to disable a key process that gets inflammation going. In the case of feverfew, a handful of controlled scientific studies in people have hinted that the herb, also known by its plant name “bachelor’s button,” is effective in combating migraine headaches, but further studies are needed to confirm these preliminary findings….

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• Is the next ‘new’ cancer drug already in your medicine cabinet?
• Medicinal Plants from the Forest
• Institute of Medicine::.Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base
• openFDA – More than 3 million adverse drug event reports at your fingertips.
• Nature’s chem lab: How microorganisms manufacture drugs
• Experts moot herbal gardens

Global Health and Human Rights Database

Global Health and Human Rights Database.

• A free online database of law from around the world relating to health and human rights.Offers an interactive, searchable, and fully indexed website of case law, national constitutions and international instruments
• Features case law and other legal documents from more than 80 countries and in 25 languages.
• Provides 500 plain-language summaries and 200 original translations of case law previously unavailable in English.
• Developed by Lawyers Collective and the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, in collaboration with over 100 partners from civil society, academic, and legal practice worldwide.
• Links to Additional Resources

 

 

 

 

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• New Reference Resource: Global Health and Human Rights Database
• Dictators Worldwide Demand Aid, Empowered UN, Global Socialism

[Podcast] Early Stress Gets Under the Skin: Promising Initiatives to Help Children Facing Chronic Adversity

From the 7 May 2014 item at the Brookings Institute

Disadvantaged children who often experience deep poverty, violence, and neglect simultaneously are particularly vulnerable to the pernicious effects of chronic stress. New research reveals that chronic stress alters childrens’ rapidly developing biological systems in ways that undermine their ability to succeed in school and in life. But there is good evidence that specialized programs can help caretakers learn to be more supportive and responsive. High-quality childcare can offer a safe, warm, and predictable environment amid otherwise chaotic lives, and home visiting programs can help both parents and foster parents learn to provide an environment of greatly reduced stress for their children.

On May 7, Princeton University and the Brookings Institution released the Spring 2014 volume and accompanying policy brief of the Future of Children. The release event featured researchers and policy experts who explained how chronic stress “gets under the skin” to disrupt normal development and how programs can provide the support so urgently needed by children who face chronic stress.

 

[Reblog] My talk to Knight Science Journalism Fellowships at MIT Medical Evidence Boot Camp 2013

From the 8 December 2013 post at HealthNewsReview.org

Last week in Cambridge, I spoke again (5th time?) at this event.  Always an honor.   Always a smart audience.

Thanks to Phil Hilts for the invitation and the opportunity to share our work with a new group of journalists.

Here are my slides.

Some excerpts

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• Health Studies: Fact or False Hope? (kstp.com)

[Purdue Library Website] Good Resource Tools for Medical and Health Information

Of particular note in the health/medical area….

Under the tab Health Information

DISEASES

• Cancer.gov

• Centers for Disease Control, and Prevention
  • Diseases and Conditions
  • Traveler’s Health
• ClinicalTrials.gov

• HealthFinder: Diseases & Conditions

• MedlinePlus: Health Topics

• Merck Manual

• National Institutes of Health
  • Health Information
  • Institutes, Offices and Centers

Under the tab Consumer Information

GUIDES TO FINDING AND EVALUATING HEALTH INFORMATION ON THE WEB

• Introduction

• Content Evaluation Guidelines

• MLA Top Ten Consumer Health Information Sites

• MLA Recommended Cancer Websites

• MLA Recommended Diabetes Websites

• MLA Recommended Heart Disease Websites

Needless to say, I’ve added a link to this at my Health Resources for all Web site

Related articles

• Good Resource Tools for Medical and Health Information (sciencepowerx.wordpress.com)

 

[Reblog] A field guide to The Diagnosis Difference (with a request from the the blogger, Ms. Fox for responses)

From the 26 November 2013 posting at Susannah Fox – Internet geologist**. Health care gadfly. Community colleague.

The Pew Research Center released a report today on people living with chronic conditions: The Diagnosis Difference.

Policy makers, patient advocates, entrepreneurs, investors, clinicians — all health care stakeholders — can use the data to map the current landscape. There are still barren patches, where people remain offline and cut off from the resources and tools. But there are lush valleys, too, where engagement and change is happening.

I see e-patients as the guides to those valleys since unless you are living with chronic conditions — or love someone who is — you don’t see that side of the internet. So here’s my request: provide your evidence. Show what you have learned.

First, a quick summary of the report:

1. 45% of U.S. adults have a chronic condition (For some, that’s a revelation and there is still a considerable distance to go before that reality is widely known. For you, that’s not the news. That’s just proof that we have a sample that matches the CDC’s estimate and you can therefore trust the data.)

2. 72% of adults with chronic conditions have internet access, compared with 89% of U.S. adults who report no conditions. There are digital divide implications to this because having a chronic disease is an independent factor in predicting if someone has access — apart from things like age, income, and educational attainment.

3. Clinicians are central resources. People living with chronic conditions are more likely than other adults to consult a clinician when they need help or after they Google for a diagnosis.

4. Self-tracking is a massive activity, particularly for people living with 2 or more chronic conditions, and this group is more likely to use formal means, not just tracking in their heads as many “well” trackers do. For example, 41% of health trackers who report having one or more chronic conditions use pencil and paper and 14% of this group uses a medical device such as a glucometer.

5. Living with a chronic condition has an independent, significant effect on behaviors that are often described as signs of consumer health engagement, like reading up on drug safety, medical treatments, or delivery-of-care reviews. Internet users living with chronic conditions are more likely than others to read or watch someone else’s commentary or personal experience about health or medical issues online.

I want to stop a moment and give some examples of what that might look like.

• Someone living with cancer might follow Lisa Bonchek Adams’s blog, learning abouthow to prepare for having a port placed.
• Someone living with diabetes might check out Diabetes Mine to learn how other PWDs (people with diabetes) rank tech tools and quality of life measures.
• Someone living with a heart condition might read Carolyn Thomas’s blog to gain reassurance that their post-diagnosis PTSD is not in their head.
• Someone living with a lung condition might learn from Propeller Health about why they, in particular, should get a flu shot.
• Someone living with high blood pressure might search Inspire.com for insights on how to keep it under control.

And now we come to the category that personally means the most to me since I’ve spent time in rare disease communities: the 16% of U.S. adults who are living with “other conditions,” like rheumatoid arthritis, epilepsy, or fibromyalgia (to name a very few of thousands). They are hardly ever in the mainstream spotlight. They may have awareness days or weeks or months that their communities honor, but you won’t see the National Football League wearing their colors.

The internet is their spotlight. A blog, a hashtag, a YouTube channel, or a Facebook group can be their lifeline. Yes, they consult clinicians like everyone else, but those who are online know that the path to health — for them — is often found in the advice shared by someone like them or the person they are caring for. The feeding tip that will help their baby get the nutrients she needs to grow. The heating-pad tip that will ease their painsomnia.

As I wrote at the top, unless you are living with chronic conditions — or love someone who is — you don’t see that side of the internet. So let’s open up the landscape.

Please post in the comments what you have learned online from a fellow spoonie, from a fellow caregiver, from a fellow traveler along the path to health. What would you tell someone just diagnosed with your condition to do, especially in tapping into the resources available online? When someone asks you, maybe over Thanksgiving, about why you spend time online, what will you say?
Post it here [at Samantha Fox’s blog] . Links to blogs, videos, tweets — all are welcome.

Thank you.

** From Susannah Fox’s About Page (Internet Geologist definition)

I was at a cocktail party, struggling to describe in just a few sentences what I do for a living, when my friend Paul Tarini broke in and said, “You’re an internet geologist. You study the rocks, you don’t judge them.” Exactly. I study patterns in the online landscape and provide data so people can make better decisions about the social impact of the internet.

My other favorite description of the kind of research I do is “nowist” (meaning: instead of being a futurist, understand what people are doing now and be alert to changes).

“Health care gadfly” describes my role outside the fray, as an observer, hopefully contributing to the public conversation in a useful way.

Ted Eytan coined the phrase “community colleague” for people who collaborate by default. That’s me. My work is enriched by the health geek tribe. I can’t imagine doing the work I do without the help of my community.

Related articles

• How US adults with chronic health conditions share health information online? (gadgetrends.ro)
• Pew Report: Chronic Health Conditions Impact 45% Of American Adults, Contribute To 75% Of Health Care Costs (medicaldaily.com)
• The Diagnosis Difference: Those with Chronic Conditions Have Different Online Habits (drhiphop85.com)
• Increased frailty associated with childhood cancer survivorship (2minutemedicine.com)
• Chronic Conditions and Medical Complexity (rehabcare.com)
• What we see and what we cannot see. What we share and do not share. And why. (snideeffects.com)
• Ill workers ‘feared losing jobs’ (standard.co.uk)

Behavioral Health United States 2012

From the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration press release

Behavioral Health United States 2012

SAMHSA’s newly-released publication, Behavioral Health, United States, 2012, the latest in a series of publications issued by SAMHSA biannually since 1980, provides in-depth information regarding the current status of the mental health and substance abuse field. It includes behavioral health statistics at the national and State levels from 40 different data sources. The report includes three analytic chapters:

• Behavioral Health Disorders across the Life Span
• Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders: Impairment in Functioning
• Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders: Treatment Landscape

 

The volume also includes 172 tables, which are organized into four sections:

• Behavioral Health of the Population: the mental health status of the U.S. population and prevalence of mental illness;
• Behavioral Health Service Utilization: providers and settings for behavioral health services; types of behavioral health services provided; and rates of utilization;
• Behavioral Health Treatment Capacity: number of facilities providing mental health and substance abuse services; numbers of qualified specialty mental health and substance abuse providers; and
• Payer and Payment Mechanisms: expenditures and sources of funding for behavioral health services.

 

No other HHS publication provides this type of comprehensive information regarding behavioral health services delivery in the U.S. This publication is the only available comprehensive source of national-level statistical information on trends in both private and public sector behavioral health services, costs, and clients. Drawing on 40 different data sources, this publication also includes State-level data, and information on behavioral health treatment for special populations such as children, military personnel, nursing home residents, and incarcerated individuals.

 

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• Judges and Psychiatrists Discuss Mental Health Treatment in the Judicial System (namisouthbay.com)
• Reports possible soon on some mental health fraud (miamiherald.com)
• NH schools awarded behavioral health grants (mysanantonio.com)

 

[Repost] Long Term Care — Five Things Physicians and Patients Should Question

I am especially grateful for #4.

From the ABIM fact sheet

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The first medical paper about Google Glass.

From the abstract at Springer Link

Graduate medical education (GME) is a balance between providing optimal patient care while ensuring that trainees (residents and fellows) develop independent medical decision making skills as well asand the ability to manage serious medical conditions. We used one form of wearable technology (“Google Glass”) to explore different scenarios in cardiovascular practice where fellows can better their education. We specified different scenarios encountered during routine clinical care in the month of July 2013. These scenarios were chosen based on their clinical significance, the difficulty posed to early stage trainees and the possibly deleterious effects of misdiagnosis or treatment. A mock trainee wearing Google glass enacted each scenario. Live video stream from the glass was transmitted via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth which could have been received by a smartphone, tablet or personal computer. In conclusion, wearable technology has the potential to enhance medical education and patient safety once widely available. Medical institutions should work on policies regarding the use of such technologies to enhance medical care without compromising patient privacy.

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• Is Google Glass the Future of Healthcare? (mashable.com)
• Google Glass in the OR: There’s an app for that, but would you trust it with your spleen? (venturebeat.com)
• Google Glass firmware teardown hints at a slew of intriguing new features (engadget.com)
• Google Glass: secret features unveiled (telegraph.co.uk)
• Wearable Technology: Does my face look big in this? (realityguitar.wordpress.com)
• Google Glass could “rehumanize the doctor-patient interaction,” in the eyes of this startup (medcitynews.com)

 

[Journal Article] The Emergent Discipline of Health Web Science -with related links and articles

Larger image –>http://www.flickr.com/photos/40726922@N07/4702688723

Came across this article through an online professional health community.  It describes how the Internet is changing approaches to healthcare issues.  Current evidence shows Web sites can empower professional and lay alike through informational Web pages, social media, health record annotations and linkages for exploration and analysis. However, these applications can be built on to better serve the health care related needs of all.  The Web can be better” engineered for health research, clinical research, and clinical practice. In addition, it is desirable to support consumers who utilize the Web for gathering information about health and well-being and to elucidate approaches to providing social support to both patients and caregivers. Finally, there is the motivation to improve both the effectiveness and efficiency of health care.” The paper goes on to outline channelling further efforts in these areas.

• Social networks
• Patient Engagement Through Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing
• Sensors, Smart Technology and Expert Patients
• “Big Data”, Semantic, and Other Integration Technologies
• Rapid, Automated, Contextualized Knowledge Discovery and Application

From the full text of the article

Abstract

The transformative power of the Internet on all aspects of daily life, including health care, has been widely recognized both in the scientific literature and in public discourse. Viewed through the various lenses of diverse academic disciplines, these transformations reveal opportunities realized, the promise of future advances, and even potential problems created by the penetration of the World Wide Web for both individuals and for society at large. Discussions about the clinical and health research implications of the widespread adoption of information technologies, including the Internet, have been subsumed under the disciplinary label of Medicine 2.0. More recently, however, multi-disciplinary research has emerged that is focused on the achievement and promise of the Web itself, as it relates to healthcare issues. In this paper, we explore and interrogate the contributions of the burgeoning field of Web Science in relation to health maintenance, health care, and health policy. From this, we introduce Health Web Science as a subdiscipline of Web Science, distinct from but overlapping with Medicine 2.0. This paper builds on the presentations and subsequent interdisciplinary dialogue that developed among Web-oriented investigators present at the 2012 Medicine 2.0 Conference in Boston, Massachusetts.

Read the entire article here

Related links

• Health Web Science Lab – “A Hippocratic Revolution in Medicine”

The Health WebScience Lab is a multi-disciplinary research initiative between Moray College UHI, NHS Grampian, HIE OpenFinder and Sitekit Solutions Ltd based in the Highlands of Scotland committed to improving health locally, nationally and internationally.

This initiative will lead, connect and collaborate on research in the emerging discipline of WebScience and Healthcare to create communities which take responsibility for their own wellbeing and self-care. This will be achieved through the application of information and other communication technologies via the internet across a whole range of functions that affect health care thereby stimulating novel research between health care professionals, the community at large and industry.

• Health Web Science Twitter account

studies ” the effects of the interaction of healthcare with the web, and of the web with healthcare” and how one can be effectively harnessed to change the other

• 3rd International Conference on Web Science (Program with many links to presentations)

Related articles

• Participatory Medicine 2.0 (projecthealthdesign.typepad.com)
• HealthCamp Boston 2012: Brainstorming the Future of Health Care (healthblawg.typepad.com)
• Semantic Web (pantypeblog.wordpress.com)
• Cooperation in Health: Mapping Collaborative Networks on the Web (plosone.org)
• Text Analytics and Semantic Processing Fuel New Web Paradigm (arnoldit.com)
• What is WebScience? (mymindbursts.com)
• Medicine 2.0’13: 6th World Congress on Social Media, Mobile Apps and Web 2.0 in Health, Medicine, and Biomedical Research (walterfarah.net)

Blog Roll: Our Favorite Health Blogs

Includes areas as nutrition, healthcare, health communication, and health/medical resources

 

SurroundHealth Blog

With tons of health blogs out there today, it can be overwhelming trying to find solid ones to follow that are a good fit for your topic of interest. At SurroundHealth, we look for bloggers that align with our goals of sharing resources and best practices in areas such as: health education/communication, professional development and health careers, health and education technology, and current health events.

While this isn’t a FULL list of the blogs we follow, we thought it would be nice to share with our members and readers some of our favorite (in no specific order) health blogs out there!

Our ‘favorites’ blog roll:

Health ECareers Network– HeCN is a really informative blog providing access to everything healthcare careers- news, information, events, career resources and employment opportunities – all specific to individual career paths. Definitely a good one to check out if you are looking to learn…

View original post 290 more words

Lower calorie foods – it’s just good business

 

 

Lower calorie foods – it’s just good business

In this landmark study, researchers examined NPD restaurant servings and traffic data, and Nation’s Restaurant News sales trends, to analyze whether or not growing sales of lower-calorie menu items in 21 national restaurant chains, accounting for half of the top 100 chain sales, resulted in superior business performance.

The study concluded that quick-service and sit-down restaurant chains that grew their lower-calorie servings delivered better business results. In short, sound strategic planning with a commitment to growing lower-calorie items is just good business.

The findings of this study clearly demonstrate that between 2006 and 2011 lower-calorie foods and beverages were the key growth engine for the restaurants studied. Restaurant chains growing their servings of lower-calorie foods and beverages demonstrated superior:

• Same-store sales (SSS) growth
• Increases in restaurant customer traffic • Gains in overall restaurant servings

Increasing lower-calorie menu portfolios can help quick-service and sit-down restaurant chains improve the key performance metrics demanded by their shareholders and Wall Street, while at the same time providing lower-calorie foods and beverages for families and children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related articles

• Study: Change menu calorie counts (wwlp.com)
• Join the conversation: Calorie counts in restaurants (globalnews.ca)
• Did They Lie? Consumer Reports on Restaurant Calorie Counts (friendseat.com)
• Restaurant Chains Still Not Meeting Nutritional Expectations (medicaldaily.com)
• Nevada Assembly Oks Restaurant Menu Calorie Bill (tomdarby.me)
• 97% of Restaurant Kids’ Meals Are Unhealthy, Consumer Group Says (livescience.com)
• Most kids’ meals at chain restaurants offer poor nutrition, as fried chicken fingers, burgers, fries, and soda reign (boomersurvive-thriveguide.typepad.com)
• Measuring meals by exercise, not calories helps consumers eat healthy: study (globalnews.ca)
• Exercise Time and not Calorie Count may Reduce Your Calorie Intake: New Study (medindia.net)
• Toronto would consider enacting bylaw requiring restaurants to post calories on menus if province fails to act (news.nationalpost.com)

 

Free Library Puts Resources About Minority Health Within Arm’s Reach – National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities

Free Library Puts Resources About Minority Health Within Arm’s Reach

From the 9 April 2013 article at the National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities

The Office of Minority Health Knowledge Center supports National Minority Health Month by highlighting many information resources available to the public. The Knowledge Center focuses its collection on consumer health and many other health equity issues, and builds on this year’s theme ofAdvance Health Equity Now: Uniting Our Communities to Bring Health Care Coverage to All.

Created in 1987, the Knowledge Center indexed and tracked the concept of health disparities in the available literature long before it appeared in the forefront of public health concerns. Today, the library offers both a historical and present day picture of the health status of minority populations and holds a collection of 10,000 reports, books, journals and media, and over 35,000 articles, which makes it the largest repository of minority health information in the nation.

Equal access to health care has long been a factor in health equity, and the Knowledge Center library catalog reflects those concerns. By searching our catalog, you will find many reports, books and fact sheets which explain disparities in access to health insurance and health care.

And the Knowledge Center is more than a library. We also contribute to the outreach and educational activities of the Office of Minority Health and reach out to other libraries to support their consumer health education initiatives. For example, a recent presentation and exhibit at the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color highlighted our services and resources for public and academic libraries.

Other libraries have found ways to advance health equity, in keeping with objectives set by our National Partnership for Action (NPA).  As an NPA partner, the University of Maryland Health Sciences and Human Services Library developed a health advocates program for local high school students (read more about the program.)

With 35 languages represented in our collection, the Knowledge Center is open to the public for research about a variety of diseases and health topics and you can search the database right from your desktop.

We invite you to take a look at our online catalog and conduct a search. Enter the search terms “Affordable Care Act” and discover what OMHRC has to offer you.

For questions or search assistance, please contact us at KnowledgeCenter@minorityhealth.hhs.gov.

Evidence based content for medical articles on Wikipedia?

Related articles

• Evidence based content for medical articles on Wikipedia? (scienceroll.com)
• What’s best care – now available to all (bangordailynews.com)
• Data driven Personalized Medicine Metamed when you cannot afford misdiagnosis (nextbigfuture.com)
• Anecdotes are never evidence…unless they’re your own. (skeptoid.com)
• Searching for Evidence Based Information (hslnews.wordpress.com)
• Costs of implementation of evidence-based therapies for stroke in Ireland (handtutorblog.wordpress.com)

 

ScienceRoll

I would love to get your feedback on a project I just came across on Wikipedia, the WikiProject Medicine/Evidence based content for medical articles on Wikipedia. The organizer of the project is the same as in Cochrane Students’ Journal Club. Please sign up if you are interested in helping us out.

Wikipedia has been accepted world wide as a source of information by both lay people and experts. Its community driven approach has ensured that the information presented caters to a wide variety of people. An article from 2011 in the Journal of Medical Internet Research found that a significant number of experts and doctors consult Wikipedia’s medicine related topics.

Medical information is very dynamic and conclusions and recommendations are turned on their heads based on new findings. Taking this into account it is important to ensure that Evidence Based content is a part of any medicine related…

View original post 26 more words

New Database Reveals Thousands of Hospital Violation Reports New Database Reveals Thousands of Hospital Violation Reports

Hospital (Photo credit: Ralf Heß)

 

From the March 20, 2013 State Line article

 

Hospitals make mistakes, sometimes deadly mistakes.  A patient may get the wrong medication or even undergo surgery intended for another person.  When errors like these are reported, state and federal officials inspect the hospital in question and file a detailed report.

Now, for the first time, this vital information on the quality and safety of the nation’s hospitals has been made available to the public online.

A new website, www.hospitalinspections.org, includes detailed reports of hospital violations dating back to January 2011, searchable by city, state, name of the hospital and key word.  Previously, these reports were filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), and released only through a Freedom of Information Act request, an arduous, time-consuming process.  Even then, the reports were provided in paper format only, making them cumbersome to analyze.

Release of this critical electronic information by CMS is the result of years of advocacy by the Association of Health Care Journalists, with funding from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.  The new database makes full inspection reports for acute care hospitals and rural critical access hospitals instantly available to journalists and consumers interested in the quality of their local hospitals.

The database also reveals national trends in hospital errors. For example, key word searches yield the incidence of certain violations across all hospitals.  A search on the word “abuse,” for example, yields 862 violations at 204 hospitals since 2011. …

 

Related articles

• Series on N.C. hospitals wins national award (charlotteobserver.com)
• Medical execs dispute hospital study (krqe.com)
• Govt. To Publish Data On What Drug & Device Makers Pay To Individual Doctors & Hospitals (consumerist.com)
• Time Magazine Study Reveals Hospitals Hiking up Medical Bills (counselheal.com)

 

New Report Provides High-Impact Recommendations to Improve Prevention Policies in America

From the 29 January 2013 Trust for America’s Health news release 

Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) has released A Healthier America 2013: Strategies to Move from Sick Care to Health Care in Four Years – which provides high-impact recommendations to prioritize prevention and improve the health of Americans.

The Healthier America report outlines top policy approaches to respond to studies that show 1) more than half of Americans are living with one or more serious, chronic diseases, a majority of which could have been prevented, and 2) that today’s children could be on track to be the first in U.S. history to live shorter, less healthy lives than their parents.

“America’s health faces two possible futures,” said Gail Christopher, DN, President of the Board of TFAH and Vice President – Program Strategy of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.  “We can continue on the current path, resigning millions of Americans to health problems that could have been avoided or we invest in giving all Americans the opportunity to be healthier while saving billions in health care costs.  We owe it to our children to take the smarter way.”

The Healthier America report stresses the importance of taking innovative approaches and building partnerships with a wide range of sectors in order to be effective.  Some recommendations include:

• Advance the nation’s public health system by adopting a set of foundational capabilities, restructuring federal public health programs and ensuring sufficient, sustained funding to meet these defined foundational capabilities;
• Ensure insurance providers reimburse for effective prevention approaches both inside and outside the doctor’s office;
• Integrate community-based strategies into new health care models, such as by expanding Accountable Care Organizations into Accountable Care Communities;
• Work with nonprofit hospitals to identify the most effective ways they can expand support for prevention through community benefit programs;
• Maintain the Prevention and Public Health Fund and expand the Community Transformation Grant program so all Americans can benefit;
• Implement all of the recommendations for each of the 17 federal agency partners in the National Prevention Strategy; and
• Encourage all employers, including federal, state and local governments, to provide effective, evidence-based workplace wellness programs…..

Related articles

• New Report from HSC and Trust for America’s Health Calls for Federal Action to Close Achievement Gap by Addressing School Health (healthyschoolscampaign.typepad.com)
• Prevention urged to avoid a national health catastrophe (bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com)
• Comment: Take prevention seriously, make it a priority (timescolonist.com)
• Today’s children to live shorter lives (upi.com)

CDC Releases Data on Interpersonal and Sexual Violence by Sexual Orientation (A First in this Area)

From the 25 January 2013 US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) press release

The first set of national prevalence data on intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual violence (SV), and stalking victimization by sexual orientation was released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study found that lesbians and gay men reported IPV and SV over their lifetimes at levels equal to or higher than those of heterosexuals; with sexual orientation based on respondents’ identification at the time of the survey.

The survey also found that bisexual women (61.1 percent) report a higher prevalence of rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner compared to both lesbian (43.8 percent) and heterosexual women (35 percent). Of the bisexual women who experienced IPV, approximately 90 percent reported having only male perpetrators, while two -thirds of lesbians reported having only female perpetrators of IPV.

The data presented in this report do not indicate whether violence occurs more often in same-sex or opposite sex couples. Rather, the data show the prevalence of lifetime victimization of intimate partner violence, sexual violence and stalking of respondents who self-identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual at the time of the survey and describe violence experienced with both same-sex and opposite-sex partners. …

…

Other key findings include:

• The majority of women who reported experiencing sexual violence, regardless of their sexual orientation, reported that they were victimized by male perpetrators.
• Nearly half of female bisexual victims (48.2 percent) and more than one-quarter of female heterosexual victims (28.3 percent) experienced their first rape between the ages of 11 and 17 years.

CDC will work to create resources to bring attention to these issues within lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities.

For more information about NISVS, including study details, please visit http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/nisvs/index.html.

To watch webinars that discuss the NISVS 2010 Summary findings, please visit PreventConnect, a national online project dedicated to the primary prevention of sexual assault and domestic violence.

 

Related articles

• CDC Releases First National Study On Rape And Domestic Violence Based On Sexual Orientation (queerty.com)
• Bisexual Women at Especially High Risk of Sexual Violence, CDC Says (nlm.nih.gov)
• LGB People Experience Domestic Violence at Same Rate as Heterosexuals (advocate.com)
• Domestic violence, rape an issue for gays (vitals.nbcnews.com)
• Bisexual Women Twice As Likely To Be Abused And/Or Raped, Study Says (thoughtcatalog.com)

 

How Doctors Think About New Technologies

From the post by Leslie Kernisan at The Health Care Blog

…

My questions when considering a new technology

To begin with, here are the questions that I think about when considering a new technology:

Does it help me do something I’m already trying to do for clinical reasons? Examples include tracking the kind of practical data I describe here (sleep, pain, falls, etc), helping patient keep track of — and take — medications, helping caregivers monitor symptoms, coordinating with other providers…my list goes on and on, although I’ll admit that I prioritize management of medical conditions, with issues like social optimization being secondary. (Social optimization is crucial, it’s just not what physicians are best at, although I certainly weigh in on how an elder’s dementia or arthritis might affect their social options.)

What evidence is there that using it will improve the health and wellbeing of an older adult (or of a caregiver)? Granted, the vast majority of interesting new tech tools will not have been rigorously tested in of themselves. Still, there is often related and relevant published evidence that can be considered. For instance, studies have generally found that there’s no clear clinical benefit in having non-insulin dependent Type 2 diabetics regularly self-monitor blood glucose. (And it is certainly burdensome for older people with lots of medical problems.) Hence I would be a bit skeptical of a new technology whose purpose is to make it easier for older adults to track their blood sugar daily, unless it were targeted towards elders on insulin or otherwise at high risk for hypoglycemia.

How does the data gathering compare to the gold standard? Many new tech tools gather data about a person. If we are to use this information for clinical purposes, then we clinicians need to know how this data gathering compares to the gold standard, or at least to a commonly used standard. For instance, if it’s a consumer wrist device to measure sleep, how does it compare in accuracy to observation in a sleep lab? Or to the actigraphy used in peer-reviewed sleep research? If it’s a sensor system to monitor gait, how does it compare to the gait evaluation of a physical therapist? If it’s the Scanadu Scout Tricorder, which measures pulse transit time as a proxy for systolic blood pressure, where is data validating that pulse transit time as measured by this device accurately reflects blood pressure? (BTW I can’t take such a tricorder seriously if it doesn’t provide a blood pressure estimate that I can have confidence in; blood pressure is essential in internal medicine.)

How exactly does it work? Especially when it comes to claims that the product will help with clinical care, or with healthcare, I want to know exactly how that might work. In particular, I want to know how the service loops in the clinician, or will facilitate the work the clinician and patient are collaborating on.

How easy is it to use? Tools and technologies need to be easy to use. Users of interest to me include older adults, caregivers, and the clinician that they’ll be interfacing with. BTW, all those med management apps that require users to laboriously enter in long drug names are NOT easy to use in my book.

How easy is it to try? Let’s assume a new technology is proposing a service to the patient (or to me) that offers plausible benefits, either because it’s a tech delivery of a clinically validated service, or because it passes my own internal common sense filters. How easy is it to actually set up and try? I’m certainly more inclined to explore a tool that doesn’t require a large financial investment, or training investment.

How cost-effective is using this technology? I’m interested both in cost-effectiveness for the patient & family, and also for the healthcare system. Sometimes we have simpler and cheaper ways to get the job done almost as well.

Can this technology provide multiple services to the patient? My patients are all medically complex, and have lots going on. Products that can provide multiple services (such as socializing with family off-site AND monitoring symptoms), or that can coordinate with another product — perhaps by allowing other services to import/export data — are a big plus.

Does this technology work well for someone who has lots of medical complexity? I always want to know if the product is robust enough to be usable by someone who has a dozen chronic conditions and at least 15 medications.

What I’d like to see on the websites

These days, a website is the generally the place to start when looking into a product or service.

It’s a great help to me when a product’s website addresses the questions I list above. Specifically, I find it very helpful when websites:

Have a section formatted for clinicians in particular. I’m afraid I don’t have much time for gauzy promises of fostering a happier old age. I just want to know how this will help me help my patients. Specific examples are very very helpful.

Have a “how it works” section with screenshots and concise text. Personally, I have limited tolerance for video (videos can’t be skimmed the way text and pictures can) and find it a little frustrating when most information is in videos. Note that it’s probably best to have separate “how it works” sections for clinicians and for patients/caregivers.

Provide a downloadable brochure for patients/families, and another for clinicians.Although it’s annoying when information is presented ONLY in a pdf brochure, I’ve discovered that I quite like having the option of a brochure. Brochures are much easier to read than websites, in that you don’t have mentally decide how to navigate them, or search through them in quite the way you do with websites. Also, brochures can be conveniently emailed to colleagues or patients, which is nice when you want to suggest that your patient try something new…..

 

Read the entire blog post here

 

Related articles

• 4 ways to make IT clinician-friendly (healthitplus.wordpress.com)
• Readers Write: Healthcare’s Crystal Ball – Predictions for 2013 (histalk2.com)
• Physicians’ websites are more “electronic brochures,” than online health resources (medcitynews.com)
• Capturing clinical innovation to improve patient care (siliconrepublic.com)
• Health, Technology and the Forgotten Stepchild of Innovation (forbes.com)

 

2011 EPA Toxic Release Inventory is releaed

From the EPA Web page

The TRI National Analysis is an annual report that provides EPA’s analysis and interpretation of the most recent TRI data. It includes information about toxic chemical releases to the environment from facilities that report to the TRI Program. It also includes information about how toxic chemicals are managed through recycling, treatment and energy recovery, and how facilities are working to reduce the amount of toxic chemicals generated and released.

WASHINGTON – Total toxic air releases in 2011 declined 8 percent from 2010, mostly because of decreases in hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions, even while total releases of toxic chemicals increased for the second year in a row, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) annual Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) report published today.

The annual TRI provides citizens with vital information about their communities. The TRI program collects information on certain toxic chemical releases to the air, water and land, as well as information on waste management and pollution prevention activities by facilities across the country. TRI data are submitted annually to EPA, states and tribes by facilities in industry sectors such as manufacturing, metal mining, electric utilities, and commercial hazardous waste facilities.

What’s new in the National Analysis this year?

• An investigation into declining air releases;
• More information about pollution prevention activities conducted at TRI facilities;
• Updated risk information;
• Enhanced Indian Country and Alaska Native Villages (ANVs) analysis.

What tools are available to help me conduct my own analysis?

A variety of online tools are available to help you access and analyze TRI data. When using TRI data, you may also want to explore the other data sources and information listed on the TRI Data and Tools webpage.

Where can I get downloadable files containing the data used in the 2011 National Analysis?

• Basic Data Files : Each file contains the most commonly requested data fields submitted by facilities on the TRI Reporting Form R or the Form A Certification Statement.
• Basic Plus Data Files : These files collectively contain all the data fields submitted by facilities on the TRI Reporting Form R or the Form A Certification Statement.
• Dioxin, Dioxin-Like Compounds and TEQ Data Files : These files include the individually reported mass quantity data for dioxin and dioxin-like compounds reported on the TRI Reporting Form R Schedule 1, along with the associated TEQ data.

Related articles

• EPA’s 2011 Toxics Release Inventory: Total toxic chemicals increase as result of mining (yubanet.com)
• EPA Toxic Release Inventory: Due to metal mining Alaska had the highest TRI releases in the nation (yubanet.com)
• EPA Issues Annual Report on Chemicals Released Into (suzirow.wordpress.com)
• EPA Annual Report Shows Increase of Toxic Chemicals to the Environment (ecowatch.org)
• Airborne Toxins Down, But Overall Pollutant Levels Rising: EPA (nlm.nih.gov)

[Partial Reblog] The Power of Patient-Expert Books

(And no, I am not advertising these books, or endorsing the contents of these books, only pointing to a trend!)

From the 4 January 2013 Huffington Post article by Riva Greenberg

Today, more and more books are being written by patients — well-educated, informed patients who manage their illness successfully and have experience, practical knowledge and insights to share with other patients.

As the new year incites a rush to become a “new, better and healthier you,” we often do so learning from our peers. When it comes to illness-warranted behavior changes, as like seeks like, it’s often easier to make changes learned from fellow patients with whom you share the experience of a disease. Like support groups and mentor programs, this is fertile soil for positive behavior change. So, I applaud the rise of patient-authors.

Patient-authors also narrate the experience of illness. That is why I hope health care professionals (HCPs) are also reading books written by patients. A book like No-Sugar Added Poetry, for example, can give HCPs immediate access to some of the emotional landscape of living with diabetes.

There is, in my mind, no easier or quicker way to tap into the experience of illness — what patients grapple with, how they feel, and the practical things that must be managed every day — than by reading a patient-written book.

When clinicians do, I believe they will become more mindful and compassionate and the relationship with their patients more trusting. And that can lead to better outcomes for both….

Read the entire article here

 

[Free Webcast] Evidence for Violence Prevention Across the Lifespan and Around the World-A Workshop

Found this while “surfing” the Institute of Medicine Web page (the primary source for an article in one of my RSS feeds).
I think I share a concern with gun violence with many of you dear readers.There has to be a better way to prevent gun violence than simply arming more folks. For example, a school system to the west of my hometown of Toledo, OH believes arming its janitors will curb violence. (Montpelier schools OKs armed janitors***). My gut reaction? If I had children in the school I would  pull them out. Homeschool them if there were no other ways to educate them. And if the teachers were armed? Same reaction.

Meanwhile I’m going to be participating in a [local] Community Committee Against Gun Violence (MoveOn.org). For the past several years I’ve been very concerned about gun violence. Time to start to do something…hopefully not too late.

Yes, this webcast might be viewed as just another talking heads exercise. I am hoping some good will come out of it. If nothing else, keep a conversation alive on how to address prevention of violence through nonviolence.

Here’s some information about the Webcast directly from the Institute of Medicine web site

Evidence for Violence Prevention Across the Lifespan and Around the World-A Workshop

When: January 23, 2013 – January 24, 2013 (8:00 AM Eastern)

Where: Keck Center (Keck 100) • 500 Fifth St. NW, Washington, DC 20001 Map

Topics: Global Health, Children, Youth and Families, Substance Abuse and Mental Health, Public Health

Activity: Forum on Global Violence Prevention

Boards: Board on Global Health, Board on Children, Youth, and Families

This workshop will be webcast. Register to attend in-person or register to watch the webcast.

  [My note…registration is now closed for in-person attendance, they’ve reached seating capacity]

Evidence shows that violence is not inevitable, and that it can be prevented. Successful violence prevention programs exist around the world, but a comprehensive approach is needed to systematically apply such programs to this problem.  As the global community recognizes the connection between violence and failure to achieve health and development goals, such an approach could more effectively inform policies and funding priorities locally, nationally, and globally.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) will convene a 2-day workshop to explore the evidentiary basis for violence prevention across the lifespan and around the world. The public workshop will be organized and conducted by an ad hoc committee to examine: 1) What is the need for an evidence-based approach to violence prevention across the world? 2) What are the conceptual and evidentiary bases for establishing what works in violence prevention? 3) What violence prevention interventions have been proven to reduce different types of violence (e.g., child and elder abuse, intimate partner and sexual violence, youth and collective violence, and self-directed violence)?  4) What are common approaches most lacking in evidentiary support? and 5) How can demonstrably effective interventions be adapted, adopted, linked, and scaled up in different cultural contexts around the world?

The committee will develop the workshop agenda, select and invite speakers and discussants, and moderate the discussions. Experts will be drawn from the public and private sectors as well as from academic organizations to allow for multi-lateral discussions. Following the conclusion of the workshop, an individually-authored summary of the event will be prepared by a designated rapporteur.

Related articles

• Comprehensive public health approach urged to curb gun violence in U.S. (mwoods228.wordpress.com)
• Harvard Researchers: Tackle Gun Violence Like Smoking, Car Deaths (wbur.org)
• Biden: Executive action can be taken on guns (politico.com)
• Vice President Biden Meets with Groups to Discuss Violence Prevention (salem-news.com)
• Analyst: No “Single Solution” to Gun Violence (voicerussia.com)
• Comprehensive Public Health Approach Urged to Curb Gun Violence in U.S. (emberbranch.wordpress.com)
• Violence plays role in shorter US life expectancy (newsobserver.com)
• Giffords launches anti-gun violence site (cnn.com)
• Montpelier OKs armed school janitors (toledoblade.com)

 

*** I did respond to the newspaper article. The response is online. I am expecting some rather strong responses, perhaps about how naive I am (sigh).

“Now I know, more than ever, that I have to get more involved in addressing violence through nonviolent means. For starters, am going to get better prepared for a nonviolent workshop our Pax Christi USA section is sponsoring next month. Also am going to do my best to follow through with a local Community Committee Against Gun Violence (http://civic.moveon.org/event/events/index.html?rc=homepage&action_id=302). Guess it’s time to be part of the solution…these two events are steps that are challenging, don’t solve things overnight, but in my heart of hearts…I feel called to participate in actions like these….(am thanking teachers here, esp those at St. Catherine’s(1960-1969) and Central Catholic (1969-1973).”

 

[Reblog] Curēus, an open-access medical journal with crowdsourcing

[Reblog] Curēus, an open-access medical journal with crowdsourcing December 23, 2012

Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Medicine, Web 2.0, Medical journalism,Medicine 2.0, e-Science.
trackbackJohn Adler who is a neurosurgeon at Stanford just launched Curēus, an open-source medical journal that leverages crowdsourcing to make scientific research more readily available to the general public. What do you think?

Based in Palo Alto, California, Curēus is the medical journal for a new generation of both doctors AND patients. Leveraging the power of an online, crowd-sourced community platform, Curēus promotes medical research by offering tools that better serve and highlight the people who create it, resulting in better research, faster publication and easier access for everyone.

We make it easier and faster to publish your work – it’s always free and you retain the copyright. What’s more, the Curēus platform is designed to provide a place for physicians to build their digital CV anchored with their posters and papers.

The Curēus site also has..

• Posters
• A supportive care collection
• Google map for who is posting (couldn’t get the map to “work” for me..)
• “Instructions for Authors”

Currently, a relatively few number of papers online. The concept is good, here’s hoping this is not a flash in the pan, but the wave of the future.

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Medical Cases in literature : an open database

Reblog from the 12 December 2012 posting at  Science Intelligence and InfoPros

Open access (OA) publisher BioMed Central has launched a new semantically-enriched search tool, Cases Database, which aims to enhance the discovery, filtering and aggregation of medical case reports from many journals. OA to journal articles published under Creative Commons licences, which permit text mining, enable the literature to be reused as a resource for scientific discovery

More than 11,000 cases from 100 different journals are reportedly available to be freely searched with Cases Database.

Cases Database uses text mining and medical term recognition to filter peer reviewed medical case reports and provide a semantically enriched search experience. The database offers structured search and filtering by condition, symptom, intervention, pathogen, patient demographic and many other data fields, allowing fast identification of relevant case reports to support clinical practice and research. Registered users can save cases, set up e-mail alerts tonew cases matching their search terms, and export their results. Cases Database will be free to access and is expected to be of particular interest to practicing clinicians, researchers, lecturers, drug regulators, patients, students and authors.

Announcement:

http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2012/12/10/embrace-information-overload-with-cases-database/

 

http://www.casesdatabase.com/

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Deficiency Symptoms and Signs – A Referenced Resource for Professionals and the Public

This morning I came across this nutrition deficiency guide while doing a (somewhat) focused Web search on a Quora question about nutritional deficiencies.
The table (rather longish) lists signs/symptoms along with possible nutritional deficiencies and other possible causes.

According to the terms and use, I am not allowed to copy/paste the table, or provide a direct link to this very informative table.
(This is a commercial site, but ad free).

Here’s how to get to the table

• Go to http://www.stewartnutrition.co.uk/index.html
• Click on Deficiency Signs and Symptoms (left column)

This site has, well, to me, an overabundance of unbiased, reliable nutrition from a medical doctor.

Dr. Stewart is medical practitioner in 1976 from Guy’s Hospital London and became a Member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1979.  He was a founding member of the British Society for Nutritional Medicine.

 

Top Health Issues for LGBT Populations (Free Information and Resource Kit)

I learned a lot just by looking at the powerpoint slides and the overview.

From the SAMHSA site

Equips prevention professionals, healthcare providers, and educators with information on current health issues among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations. Includes an overview of terms related to gender identity and sexual expression.

Table of contents

Helpful Terms for Prevention Specialists and Healthcare Providers A-1
A Discussion about Gender Identity B-1
Top Health Issues for Lesbians C-1
Top Health Issues for Gay Men D-1
Top Health Issues for Bisexual Men and Women E-1
Top Health Issues for Transgender People F-1
Selected Web-based Resources G-1
PowerPoint Slides: Top Health Issues for LGBT Populations H-1

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National Library of Medicine (NLM) Drug Information Portal is now available for mobile devices

Now one can get summary and detailed drug information on the go from reputable resources

From a recent email rec’d from the US National Library of Medicine

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) Drug Information Portal is now available for mobile devices.http://druginfo.nlm.nih.gov/m.drugportal

This mobile optimized web site covers over 32,000 drugs and provides descriptions, drug names, pharmaceutical categories, and structural diagrams.  Each record also features information links to 19 other resources including NLM PubMed, NLM LactMed, and Drugs@FDA.  The mobile version of a resource is used when available.

Smart Phones accessing the main Drug Portal site will be taken the mobile site.

The Drug Information Portal (http://druginfo.nlm.nih.gov)  is a free Web resource from the NLM that provides an informative, user friendly entry-way to current drug information for over 32,000 drugs. Links to sources span the breadth of the NLM, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other government agencies. Current information regarding consumer health, clinical trials, AIDS–related drug information, MeSH pharmacological actions, PubMed biomedical literature, and physical properties and structure is easily retrieved by searching on a drug name. A varied selection of focused topics in medicine and drug–related information is also available from displayed subject headings.

For a full list of available apps and mobile websites, visit our NLM Gallery of Mobile Apps and Sites at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mobile/

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Haz-Map (occupational health database) redesigned for web and mobile versions

 

From a recent email from NLM (US National Library of Medicine)

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) Division of Specialized Information Services (SIS) has released redesigned web and mobile versions of Haz-Map (http://hazmap.nlm.nih.gov/ ). The new design adapts to web browsers on desktop computers, laptops, and tablets, as well as mobile browsers on smart phones, such as iPhones, Android and Blackberry phones.

Haz-Map is an occupational health database designed for health and safety professionals and for consumers seeking information about the health effects of exposure to chemicals and biologicals at work.  Haz-Map links jobs and hazardous tasks with occupational diseases and their symptoms. It currently covers over 5997 chemical and biological agents and 235 occupational diseases.

More information can be found at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/hazmap.html

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American College of Physicians Ethics Manual Sixth Edition

From the article abstract about the revised ethics manual

The sixth edition of the American College of Physicians (ACP) Ethics Manual covers emerging issues in medical ethics and revisits older ones that are still very pertinent. It reflects on many of the ethical tensions in medicine and attempts to shed light on how existing principles extend to emerging concerns. In addition, by reiterating ethical principles that have provided guidance in resolving past ethical problems, the Manual may help physicians avert future problems. The Manual is not a substitute for the experience and integrity of individual physicians, but it may serve as a reminder of the shared duties of the medical profession.

The full review of this manual by the ACP may be found here

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National Library of Medicine Launches YouTube Channel

From the announcment

New Outlet Will Allow Access to Lectures, Training, Special Events and Other Video Content

 

The National Library of Medicine, the world’s largest medical library and a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is pleased to announce the launch of its new YouTube channel, at http://www.youtube.com/nlmnih.

YouTube is a free video-sharing Web site, created in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos. Unregistered users may watch videos, and registered users may upload an unlimited number of videos.

The NLM YouTube channel will post videos of database training, NLM exhibitions (such as an overview of the new Native Voices: Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness), public service announcements, lectures and more.  Interested parties can subscribe to be notified whenever new content is posted on the NLM channel. The NLM site also features links to NIH YouTube channels and other federal health resources.

Although figures for the number of YouTube users worldwide vary, most studies list it as the third most popular Web site, following Facebook and Google. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and now operates as a subsidiary of Google.

 

Reminder: NLM Gateway Changing

Image via Wikipedia

From NLM Technical Bulletin, November 23, 2011 [posted]

Reminder: NLM Gateway Changing

On December 1, 2011, the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications (LHNCBC) will complete the transition of the NLM® Gateway to the new LHNCBC pilot project. The new site will retain the Web address of the former NLM Gateway. It will have two databases: Meeting Abstracts and Health Services Research Projects in Progress (HSRProj). HSRProj also remains available via a separate search engine through the portal HSR Information Central.

The Meeting Abstracts database contains abstracts from HIV/AIDS, Health Services Research, and Space Life Sciences meetings and conferences. The final update to the Meeting Abstracts database is the addition of the abstracts from the 2010 18th International AIDS Conference which will be completed in December 2011. After this addition, no new meeting abstract data will be loaded.

For additional information on the transition to the pilot project, see the article NLM Gateway Transitioning to New Pilot Project Site.

========

May 27, 2011 [posted]

NLM Gateway Transitioning to New Pilot Project Site

On December 1, 2011, the NLM® Gateway will transition to a new pilot project from the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications (LHNCBC). The current version of the NLM Gateway provides search access across multiple databases; however, all but one of these databases is available from other NLM sources, and most users of those databases search them directly and do not use the NLM Gateway. Only one database, Meeting Abstracts, is uniquely located on the Gateway system. Although NLM has invested in and supported the NLM Gateway for eleven years, based on current budget limitations and the results of evaluations of the use of NLM Gateway, the Library has recently decided to discontinue this service, as currently configured, and transition to a new pilot project site.

The new site will focus on two databases: Meeting Abstracts and Health Services Research Projects in Progress (HSRProj). A forthcoming NLM Technical Bulletin will provide more information on this new service from the LHNCBC. Once the new pilot system is available in December, the current Gateway URL will redirect any visitors to the new Web site. The Meeting Abstracts database will still be unique to this site, while HSRProj will continue to be accessible from its home site.

The Meeting Abstracts database contains selected abstracts from meetings and conferences in the subject areas of AIDS, Health Services Research, and Space Life Sciences. The last update to the Meeting Abstracts Database is anticipated to be the addition of the 2010 18th International AIDS Conference, which is expected to be loaded in the fall of 2011. After this addition, the Meeting Abstracts database will still be accessible, but no new data will be loaded.

All of the other resources currently accessed through the NLM Gateway will be available through their individual sites (see Table 1). The home sites for these systems are listed on the NLM Databases & Electronic Resources page. This directory of resources is easily located by clicking on the “All NLM Databases” link in the Databases column on theNLM homepage.

Table 1: The NLM Resources, and homepage URLs, that will no longer be available through the NLM Gateway.

NLM Resources Formerly on the NLM Gateway	URL
Bookshelf	http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books
Chemical Carcinogenesis Research Information System (CCRIS)	http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?CCRIS
ClinicalTrials.gov	http://clinicaltrials.gov/
Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology Database (DART)	http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?DARTETIC
Directory of Health Organizations (DIRLINE®)	http://dirline.nlm.nih.gov/
Genetic Toxicology Data Bank (GENE-TOX)	http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?GENETOX
Genetics Home Reference	http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/
Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)	http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?HSDB
Household Products Database	http://hpd.nlm.nih.gov/
Images from the History of Medicine	http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/ihm/index.html
Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS)	http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?IRIS
International Toxicity Estimates for Risk (ITER)	http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?iter
MEDLINE®/PubMed®	http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
MedlinePlus®	http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/
NLM Catalog	http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog
Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM)	http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/omim
Profiles in Science®	http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/
TOXLINE® Subset	http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?TOXLINE

If you are accustomed to the NLM Gateway cross file searching function you may want to try using the cross database features provided by TOXNET® and by the NCBI Entrez system.

The search box on the TOXNET homepage offers a cross database search function for the databases in the Toxicology Data Network (see Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1: TOXNET homepage with “Search All Databases” feature.

Figure 2: TOXNET Search All Databases Results Page.

The NCBI global query feature on the NCBI homepage provides a cross database search feature for all of the Entrez databases (see Figures 3 and 4). Selecting “All Databases” in the search box will return a summary search page identifying possible results across all of the NCBI Entrez databases, including PubMed, PubMed Central, BookShelf, NLM Catalog, and the genetic and protein databases such as Gene, OMIM, BLAST, dbGaP, and others.

You can simply bookmark the Web page http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gquery to access the global query search feature. However, going to the NCBI homepage may be the easier way to access this function; the NCBI logo on the top left corner of any Entrez-based system links to the NCBI homepage.

Figure 3: NCBI homepage and “All Databases” option in the search box.

Figure 4: Entrez global query search results page.

By David Gillikin
Bibliographic Services Division

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NCI Announces Guide to Communicating Data to Lay Audiences

 

Image via Wikipedia

NCI Announces Guide to Communicating Data to Lay Audiences.

(Via the Blog Health Information Literacy – for health and well being)

The following was posted on the NCI Cancer Patient Educators’ Listserv [CA-PATIENT-ED@LIST.NIH.GOV]

Communicating data to lay audiences is difficult, but the National Cancer Institute’s newly releasedMaking Data Talk: A Workbook can help you present scientific and health data in engaging and effective ways.

 The workbook, based on the groundbreaking book Making Data Talk: Communicating Public Health Data to the Public, Policy Makers, and the Press written by NCI communication researchers, provides key information, practical suggestions, and examples that can be applied to many public health issues.

Making Data Talk: A Workbook is available to download or order a print copy. The content provides:

·         Recommendations about selecting and presenting data, including tips for using visual symbols

·         An introduction to the OPT-IN (Organize, Plan, Test, Integrate) framework which guides public health practitioners on how to present health data to lay audiences.

·         Practice exercises using real-world examples to reinforce key concepts and help you apply what you have learned

Chapters in the workbook include:

·         You CAN Make Data Talk and Be Understood

·         Use Communication Fundamentals to Your Advantage

·         Help Lay Audiences Understand Your Data

·         Present Data Effectively

·         Use OPT-In Framework to Make Your Data Talk

·         Show What you Know: Communicating Data in Acute Public Health Situations

·         Show What You Know: Communicating Data in Health Policy or Program Advocacy Situations

 

Order your print copy of the workbook or download the online version today.

Other NCI publications include

ntroductory Information

• What Is Cancer?
  Definition of cancer, a brief explanation of the origins of cancer in cells, basic cancer statistics, and links to other NCI cancer-related resources.

NCI Publications

• What You Need To Know About™ Cancer Index
  This booklet series has information on many types of cancer. Each booklet tells about possible risks, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment, and each has lists of questions to ask the doctor.
• NCI Fact Sheets
  Nearly 200 frequently updated fact sheets on a wide array of cancer topics. Fact sheets address risk factors, prevention, support, treatment, and more.
• Chemotherapy Side Effects Fact Sheets
  Chemotherapy fact sheets with clear medical advice from doctors and nurses, and practical tips from patients to help you manage side effects.
• Radiation Therapy Side Effects Fact Sheets
  Radiation therapy fact sheets that help patients understand their treatment and manage side effects. The fact sheets (also available in audio) have patient testimonials, tips from healthcare providers, and questions to ask providers.
• NCI Publications Locator
  An online system for finding, viewing, and ordering NCI reports, publications, and other materials. Can be searched by topic, audience, and language.
• Ordering National Cancer Institute Publications
  A fact sheet that describes NCI policy on distribution of publications, including quantity, cost, method of payment, shipping and handling, and refunds.

NCI Health Communications Publications

• Making Data Talk: A Workbook
  This workbook provides key information, practical suggestions, and examples on how to effectively communicate health-related scientific data to the public, policy makers, and the media.
• Pink Book – Making Health Communication Programs Work
  This book, a revision of the original 1989 Making Health Communication Programs Work, is a guide to creating successful health communications programs using tested strategies and methods.
• Theory at a Glance: A Guide for Health Promotion Practice
  This monograph describes influential theories of health-related behaviors, the processes of shaping behaviors, and the effects of community and environmental factors on behavior. It makes health behavior theory accessible and provides tools to solve problems and assess the effectiveness of health promotion programs.
• Clear & Simple: Developing Effective Print Materials for Low-Literate Readers
  This guide outlines a process for developing publications for people with limited-literacy skills. It features proven principles and a discussion of the real-life issues faced in developing low-literacy materials. NIH Publication 95-3594

Cancer Literature in PubMed

• Cancer Literature in PubMed
  Searching for all citations using the NLM PubMed database.
• Cancer Topic Searches
  Searching for cancer-related citations using the NLM PubMed database.

Other Resources

• Education and Training for Health Professionals
  This is a collection of cancer education and training offerings from NCI and NIH for health professionals. Courses are available in a variety of formats such as online self-study, video, webinars, and animated tutorials.
• Understanding Cancer Series
  This Web site contains graphic-rich tutorials for educational use by life science teachers, medical professionals, and the interested public. Each tutorial is also available in PDF and PowerPoint formats that may be downloaded from the Web.
• Inside Cancer: Multimedia Guide to Cancer Biology
  This Web site uses animations, narration, and interviews to explain how cancer develops and to discuss cancer causes, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.
• Visuals Online
  An NCI database of cancer-specific scientific and patient care-related images, as well as general biomedical and science-related images and portraits of NCI directors and staff.
• CancerSPACE
  CancerSPACE (Cancer: Simulating Practice and Collaborative Education) is a unique educational tool created to help clinics improve their process for cancer screening. It is designed for use in training the staff of community health centers.
• PDQ®
  An NCI database that contains the latest information about cancer treatment, screening, prevention, genetics, supportive care, and complementary and alternative medicine, plus clinical trials.
• NCI Dictionary of Genetics Terms
  A dictionary of more than 100 genetics-related terms written for healthcare professionals. This resource was developed to support the comprehensive, evidence-based, peer-reviewed PDQ cancer genetics information summaries.
• Professional Resources for Cancer Patient Education
  Information about the Cancer Patient Education Network, the cancer education grants program, and a listserv for cancer patient educators.
• EPEC™-O | Education in Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Oncology
  EPEC™-O (Education in Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Oncology) and EPEC™-O with American Indian and Alaska Native Cultural Considerations are free comprehensive multimedia curricula in CD-ROM format for health professionals caring for persons with cancer.
• Evaluating Health Information on the Internet
  This fact sheet contains information to help people decide whether the health information they find on the Internet or receive via e-mail from a Web site is likely to be reliable.
• Prevention Communication Research Database
  This database offers a searchable collection of audience research conducted or sponsored by HHS agencies and concerning prevention issues such as physical activity, healthy eating, tobacco use, and substance abuse.
• ASCO® Abstracts
  Search ASCO’s comprehensive database of abstracts to find the results of the latest clinical cancer research.
• Links to Other Web Sites
  Links to other federal government Web sites and to NCI partners.

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Apple Makes Finding Medical Apps for Professional A Little Easier

From the Krafty Librarian post Apple Makes Finding Medical Apps for Professional A Little Easier.

According mobihealthnews, Apple quietly launched a new section on the AppStore directed just towards healthcare professionals.  The section which was referred to as an “iTunes Room for Healthcare,” has apps for both the iPhone and iPad intended specifically for healthcare professionals. (There appears to be about a dozen apps that are also for consumer use.)

Not only will this section be dedicated to apps for healthcare professionals but it will also internal categorization as well.  There are six categories for the medical apps: reference, educational, EMR and patient monitoring, imaging, point of care, and personal care (for consumers).  Mobihealthnews thinks that the “personal care” apps may have been included “as a means to help care providers recommend popular health apps to their patients.”

Finally!!!!!  That medical/health section had a lot of junk apps that people had to sift through to find good stuff, it is nice to see this professional section come about. My only question is how/who is adding and vetting the apps?  I hope it isn’t a free for all where app developers can just add their app if they feel like (meaning we could return to problem of chaff out numbering the wheat) but I would like it to be open enough that something that was good but accidentally left out or something newly created could be easily added.

PubMed Health – A Growing Resource for Clinical Effectiveness Information

From the November NLM Technical Bulletin article

PubMed Health — A Growing Resource for Clinical Effectiveness Information

PubMed® Health developed further as a resource for clinical effectiveness research with its August and September 2011 releases. Growing from around 200 items based on systematic reviews to over 5,000, PubMed Health has also begun a collection focused on helping people understand systematic reviews and their results. PubMed Health goals are: helping users find the evidence that could answer their questions about effects of health care and helping them understand what they find.

Making Systematic Reviews More Accessible
Systematic reviews that identify and interpret studies on the effects of health care form an essential research basis for informed decision-making. Systematic reviewing has been growing, especially with the advent of The Cochrane Collaboration and the increasing incorporation of this methodology in health technology assessment by public agencies and clinical practice guideline development.

Systematic reviews (including health technology assessments) are often lengthy and highly technical. Their evolution has been accompanied by a growth in knowledge translation activity. Along with traditional abstracts, various forms have been developed to help people use systematic reviews: executive and policymaker summaries, summaries or other forms for patients/consumers and summaries for clinicians.

However, these materials have been scattered widely on content providers’ Web sites without being collected centrally. Many of the systematic reviews undertaken by public health technology assessment agencies have also remained outside the National Library of Medicine® (NLM®) system. The PubMed Health initiative is gathering them together within a single searchable resource.

PubMed Health Content
PubMed Health contains systematic reviews and summaries of systematic reviews undertaken or updated in roughly the last ten years. The time limit is applied to publication date of around eight years, to allow for the time lag from the date of the evidence search. The cut-off currently is 2003.

New content incorporated in these releases include summaries from The Cochrane Collaboration and the National Health Service (NHS) National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment Programme. There are also full text reviews from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Drug Effectiveness Review Project (DERP) at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), England’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines program, and the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Evidence-based Synthesis Program. From NHS Choices comes “Behind the Headlines”, its educational service on the science behind the news. These new content providers join PubMed Health original consumer clinical effectiveness content for consumers content provided by AHRQ and the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG).

The reviews and review summaries now in PubMed Health account for perhaps one-third of the good quality systematic reviews published by public agencies and journals worldwide. Most of the remainder can be found in PubMed “Clinical Queries” Systematic Reviews search which runs simultaneously with a PubMed Health search; those PubMed results are presented as links on the right-hand portion of the results page (see #3 in Figure 4).

Organization
The re-designed homepage (see Figure 1) includes four key sections:

• Contents: a complete alphabetical listing of all titles, sorted by type of content.
• Behind Headlines: the NHS guide to the science behind health stories in the news.
• New & updated: content added in the last 60 days.
• Featured reviews: high quality reviews on interesting topics are selected and featured here. “Previously featured reviews” are provided in an RSS feed to which people can subscribe.
• Understanding clinical effectiveness: an explanation of clinical effectiveness research along with a section focusing on resources to help people understand systematic reviews and interpret the results.

Figure 1: PubMed Health homepage.

A drop-down box under “Contents” (see Figure 2) shows the categories of information currently included in PubMed Health where these are available:

• For consumers: includes consumer summaries of systematic reviews as well as consumer information based on systematic reviews.
• Executive summaries: executive or policymaker summaries of systematic reviews.
• Clinical guides: clinician summaries of systematic reviews as well as clinical practice guidelines that are based on a fully reported systematic review.
• Full text reviews: systematic reviews with full texts, including PDF versions.
• Medical encyclopedia: medical and drug information for consumers for supplementary background information.

PubMed Health includes content that is currently also cited in PubMed, and PubMed Health will systematically be building in links to these citations. However, there will be some time lag for many items between inclusion in PubMed Health and citation in PubMed. Consumer content from PubMed Health is currently not included in PubMed.

Figure 2: Contents drop-down box.

At the top right-hand corner (see Figure 3), “About PubMed Health” explains the Web site and the National Center Biotechnology Information, NLM, with a full listing of content providers. “Help” includes explanation of basic functions, along with suggested citations for PubMed Health content.

Figure 3: About PubMed Health and Help features.

Searching
The primary search (see #1 in Figure 4) returns clinical effectiveness content by relevance, with the option of viewing all (default) or only specified content types. Relevant medical encyclopedia results are shown at the right (see #2 inFigure 4), with the results of the “Clinical Queries” filter search for systematic reviews in PubMed showing below those (see #3 in Figure 4). “Clinical Queries” returns results chronologically.

Figure 4: Search results.

Additional Features
With medical encyclopedia content, PubMed Health has enhanced the display of anatomical images and given this popular feature a more prominent position. There are links from the medical encyclopedia diseases and conditions pages to MedlinePlus® content.

PubMed Health now features “Add this” sharing for e-mail and social media. Coming in the fall, PubMed Health will begin a Twitter feed, announcing new content providers and features, as well as featured content.

PubMed Health full address: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/
Shortcut: http://www.pubmed.gov/health
Customer service contact: pmh-help@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

By Hilda Bastian
National Center for Biotechnology Information

 

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PubMed Health — A Growing Resource for Clinical Effectiveness Information

 

Image via Wikipedia

From the November NLM Technical Bulletin article

PubMed Health — A Growing Resource for Clinical Effectiveness Information

PubMed® Health developed further as a resource for clinical effectiveness research with its August and September 2011 releases. Growing from around 200 items based on systematic reviews to over 5,000, PubMed Health has also begun a collection focused on helping people understand systematic reviews and their results. PubMed Health goals are: helping users find the evidence that could answer their questions about effects of health care and helping them understand what they find.

Making Systematic Reviews More Accessible
Systematic reviews that identify and interpret studies on the effects of health care form an essential research basis for informed decision-making. Systematic reviewing has been growing, especially with the advent of The Cochrane Collaboration and the increasing incorporation of this methodology in health technology assessment by public agencies and clinical practice guideline development.

Systematic reviews (including health technology assessments) are often lengthy and highly technical. Their evolution has been accompanied by a growth in knowledge translation activity. Along with traditional abstracts, various forms have been developed to help people use systematic reviews: executive and policymaker summaries, summaries or other forms for patients/consumers and summaries for clinicians.

However, these materials have been scattered widely on content providers’ Web sites without being collected centrally. Many of the systematic reviews undertaken by public health technology assessment agencies have also remained outside the National Library of Medicine® (NLM®) system. The PubMed Health initiative is gathering them together within a single searchable resource.

PubMed Health Content
PubMed Health contains systematic reviews and summaries of systematic reviews undertaken or updated in roughly the last ten years. The time limit is applied to publication date of around eight years, to allow for the time lag from the date of the evidence search. The cut-off currently is 2003.

New content incorporated in these releases include summaries from The Cochrane Collaboration and the National Health Service (NHS) National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment Programme. There are also full text reviews from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Drug Effectiveness Review Project (DERP) at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), England’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines program, and the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Evidence-based Synthesis Program. From NHS Choices comes “Behind the Headlines”, its educational service on the science behind the news. These new content providers join PubMed Health original consumer clinical effectiveness content for consumers content provided by AHRQ and the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG).

The reviews and review summaries now in PubMed Health account for perhaps one-third of the good quality systematic reviews published by public agencies and journals worldwide. Most of the remainder can be found in PubMed “Clinical Queries” Systematic Reviews search which runs simultaneously with a PubMed Health search; those PubMed results are presented as links on the right-hand portion of the results page (see #3 in Figure 4).

Organization
The re-designed homepage (see Figure 1) includes four key sections:

• Contents: a complete alphabetical listing of all titles, sorted by type of content.
• Behind Headlines: the NHS guide to the science behind health stories in the news.
• New & updated: content added in the last 60 days.
• Featured reviews: high quality reviews on interesting topics are selected and featured here. “Previously featured reviews” are provided in an RSS feed to which people can subscribe.
• Understanding clinical effectiveness: an explanation of clinical effectiveness research along with a section focusing on resources to help people understand systematic reviews and interpret the results.

Figure 1: PubMed Health homepage.

A drop-down box under “Contents” (see Figure 2) shows the categories of information currently included in PubMed Health where these are available:

• For consumers: includes consumer summaries of systematic reviews as well as consumer information based on systematic reviews.
• Executive summaries: executive or policymaker summaries of systematic reviews.
• Clinical guides: clinician summaries of systematic reviews as well as clinical practice guidelines that are based on a fully reported systematic review.
• Full text reviews: systematic reviews with full texts, including PDF versions.
• Medical encyclopedia: medical and drug information for consumers for supplementary background information.

PubMed Health includes content that is currently also cited in PubMed, and PubMed Health will systematically be building in links to these citations. However, there will be some time lag for many items between inclusion in PubMed Health and citation in PubMed. Consumer content from PubMed Health is currently not included in PubMed.

Figure 2: Contents drop-down box.

At the top right-hand corner (see Figure 3), “About PubMed Health” explains the Web site and the National Center Biotechnology Information, NLM, with a full listing of content providers. “Help” includes explanation of basic functions, along with suggested citations for PubMed Health content.

Figure 3: About PubMed Health and Help features.

Searching
The primary search (see #1 in Figure 4) returns clinical effectiveness content by relevance, with the option of viewing all (default) or only specified content types. Relevant medical encyclopedia results are shown at the right (see #2 inFigure 4), with the results of the “Clinical Queries” filter search for systematic reviews in PubMed showing below those (see #3 in Figure 4). “Clinical Queries” returns results chronologically.

Figure 4: Search results.

Additional Features
With medical encyclopedia content, PubMed Health has enhanced the display of anatomical images and given this popular feature a more prominent position. There are links from the medical encyclopedia diseases and conditions pages to MedlinePlus® content.

PubMed Health now features “Add this” sharing for e-mail and social media. Coming in the fall, PubMed Health will begin a Twitter feed, announcing new content providers and features, as well as featured content.

PubMed Health full address: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/
Shortcut: http://www.pubmed.gov/health
Customer service contact: pmh-help@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

By Hilda Bastian
National Center for Biotechnology Information

 

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http://www.rluk.ac.uk/node/657

From the Science Intelligence blog item

A recent study has has found quantitative evidence of a significant difference in search performance between paediatric residents or interns assisted by a librarian and those searching the literature alone.

Each participant searched PubMed and other online sources, performing pre-determined tasks including the formulation of a clinical question, retrieval and selection of bibliographic records. In the assisted group, participants were supported by a librarian with ≥5 years of experience. The primary outcome was the success of search sessions, scored against a specific assessment tool.

To read in Health information and Libraries Journal:***
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2011.00957.x/abstract

*** This article is only available online through paid subscription.

 For suggestions on how to get this article for free or at low cost, click here.

 

 

“Show Off Your Apps” Winners of the NLM software development challenge

From the NLM (National Library of Medicine) Web page

Show Off Your Apps Winners And Honorable Mentions

 

The National Library of Medicine (NLM), wishes to congratulate the five winning entries in the Library’s software development challenge, “Show off Your Apps: Innovative Uses of NLM Information.” In addition, we thank all Entrants for participating in the Library’s first software development challenge!

 

Winners

 

GLAD4U

GLAD4U (Gene List Automatically Derived For You) is a new, free web-based gene retrieval and prioritization tool, which takes advantage of the NCBI’s Entrez Programming Utilities (E-utilities). Upon the submission of a query, GLAD4U retrieves the corresponding publications with eSearch before using Pubmed ID-Entrez Gene ID mapping tables provided by the NCBI to create a list of genes. A statistics-based prioritization algorithm ranks those genes into a list that is output to the user, usually within less than a minute. The GLAD4U user interface accepts any valid queries for PubMed, and its output page displays the ranked gene list and information associated with each gene, chronologically-ordered supporting publications, along with a summary of the run and links for file exports and for further functional enrichment analyses.

 

iAnatomy

Learning anatomy interactively with a touchscreen device is  dynamic and engaging. Having it as an app, makes the information available anywhere, anytime. iAnatomy is an exciting electronic anatomy atlas for iPhone/iPod touch. The images are interactive and zoomable. If a label is touched, the name of the structure is shown.  Images span from the face to the pelvis. The face and neck images and the female pelvis images are reconstructed from data from the National Library of Medicine’s Visible Human Project. iAnatomy is designed to stand on its own and does not require an ongoing internet connection. Learning is reinforced with multiple quiz modes. Latin medical terminology is also included as an option for international use.

 

KNALIJ

The KNALIJ web application addresses the challenges and opportunities posed by ‘big data’ with a new generation of information visualization tools. It offers researchers, students and health consumers alike a technology platform with capabilities to rapidly discover and gain insights from the copious amounts of information being made available from the National Libraries of Medicine (NLM), through its data repositories such as PubMed. KNALIJ recognizes the ‘connections’ linking bio-medical and life sciences research and researchers around the world, and visualizes those linkages. This makes them clear, intuitive, and even playful by providing interactive ‘information communities’ for exploration, analysis, and education.

 

NLMplus

NLMplus is an innovative semantic search and discovery application developed by WebLib LLC, a small business in Maryland. NLMplus provides enhanced access to the vast collection of health and biomedical information and services made available by the world’s largest medical library, the National Library of Medicine (NLM).

 

Quertle

Quertle is an innovative website for searching and investigating the biomedical literature. Quertle uses advanced linguistic methods to find the most relevant documents instead of traditional keyword searching, which often returns an overwhelming list of uninformative articles. Quertle is geared to active life science professionals – both researchers and health care providers – and saves them considerable time and effort in finding the literature they need.  Quertle, available on the web using any browser, simultaneously searches multiple sources of life science literature, including MEDLINE.

 

Honorable Mentions

 

BioDigital Human Platform

The BioDigital Human Platform simplifies the understanding of health topics by visualizing anatomy, conditions and treatments. Similar to how geo-browsers such as Google Earth serve as the basis for thousands of location based applications, the BioDigital Human Platform will open up entirely new ways to augment healthcare applications. From the visual representation of concepts found on health portals, to step-by-step virtual guidance for surgical planning, to EHR integration so patients can finally understand their diagnosis, the BioDigital Human Platform will meet the learning demands of 21st century medicine.

 

DailyMedPlus

DailyMedPlus is an online application providing integrated access to pharmaceutical information available from various databases provided by the National Library of Medicine (NLM).  DailyMedPlus offers a high-performance unified search engine providing ranked, highlighted and full-text search results for patients and healthcare professionals who seek updated prescribing information.  As the only product of its kind, the application supports searching NLM databases for pharmaceutical products using trade and generic names, medical conditions, indications, contra-indications, side-effects, and also allows for the searching of these products by their physical characteristics (“red round”), providing image results in an in line intuitive layout.  Users benefit from comprehensive search results of more than 90,000 products displayed in over 26,000 organized and digitally curated monographs designed for browsing on a wide variety of desktop and mobile platforms.

 

Drug Diary

Drug Diary is an iOS (iPhone / iPod Touch / iPad) application that allows users to quickly build an inventory of prescribed and OTC medications they are currently taking or have taken in the past along with information on the associated prescribers and pharmacies.  From there, they are able to take notes outlining their experiences with these medications and generate reports to share with care providers.  Data entry is made quick and easy through the use of a locally cached copy of the NLM’s RxTerms dataset and intelligent data entry screens that require little to no typing.  The app leverages the data present in RxTerms to allow one tap access to another NLM source, MedLine Plus, which is a web portal that provides detailed information on the medications in the user’s library.

 

Molecules

Molecules is a 3-D molecular modeling application for Apple’s iOS devices, including the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.  It pushes the limits of mobile graphics processors by using advanced techniques to make realistic renderings of molecular models.  A touch-based interface allows for intuitive manipulation of these structures, so that they can be viewed from any angle and at any scale. While originally designed for researchers to view and present biomolecule structures on the go, the most popular use of Molecules has proven to be in education.  Chemistry teachers are using this application to explain common molecular structures to their students, and biology professors are demonstrating the form and function of biomolecules.  Many students already have iOS devices of their own, so they are able to make the lesson more personal by following along on their own iPhone or iPad.  The popularity of this approach is seen in the over 1.7 million downloads of this application to date.

 

ORKOV

Orkov is a Greek term for Hippocratic Oath that medical professionals, especially, physicians take all over the world. Orkov, an iPhone App for iOS 5 platform as well as for Android OS is a productivity smart phone application for hundreds of thousands of medical researchers who are the end users of PubMed.gov data all over the world.  Orkov empowers many researchers to search and browse research abstracts and full text research articles from the repository of PubMed.gov’s over 5,000+ research journals.  Orkov utilizes publicly available web service interface of PubMed.gov.  Majority of the features of PubMed.gov are wrapped into a powerful iPhone/Andorid App that is easy to use and navigate.

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