Using New Technology to Deliver Consumer Health Information
Abigail Jones
Ohio State University
Prior Health Sciences Library
376 W. 10th Ave
Columbus, OH 43210
I conducted a survey through the CAPHIS list on library use of emerging technologies to deliver consumer health information.
Here are responses I received:
"I email information and while I would love to participate in our hospital’s facebook presence, but they don’t allow us to access social media here at work."
I do have a wiki page too http://hhlc.wikispaces.com/, and I had to obtain special permission to access that here."
"I just got permission to use Facebook and Twitter, so I am ready to experiment."
"About the only thing we consistently use is email. We encourage patrons to give us an email address where we can send information to them as well as fax or mail to them. We also will save information for them on their flash drives or on CD-ROMs or diskettes. (Flash drives haven't gotten so cheap for us that we hand them out free but so many people have one attached to their key chain nowdays. We'll give them CD-ROMs or diskettes, though)."
"I provide free consumer health distance education classes using Moodle, which is an open-source course management system similar to Blackboard. Inside the classes, I've embedded Meebo widgets so class participants can instant message me if they have a question. These classes count towards CE credits from the Medical Library Association, which can be applied towards the CHIS (consumer health information specialization)."
"We at NN/LM Southeastern Atlantic Region (and other NN/LM regional offices) use webinars and teleconferences to provide consumer health topics and other topics pertinent to health sciences and public librarians."
"We use twitter and have created online tutorials using Lectora by Trivantis. Please go to our website http://www.stlouischildrens.org and search for 'interactive learning.' "
"I started a blog www.cancercenterlibrarian.blogspot.com and am in the process of creating a Facebook account so I can get some friends to actually read the blog! I hope to learn how to incorporate videos into the blog and am thinking about including short interviews. I am certainly open to learning what others are doing.If you're not familar with the Krafty Librarian blog, you might find her ideas helpful. Here is her take on making your library site mobile.
http://kraftylibrarian.com/?p=946&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kraftylibrarian%2FOLay+%28The+Krafty+Librarian%29"
"I'm not doing any of this, except the occasional email."
"I'm working on a complete redesign of my library's website and will likely add a Facebook account but don't have one yet."
"I direct a multilingual web-based health information project called Healthy Roads Media (www.healthyroadsmedia.org). It is an effort to explore, develop and evaluate the use of various information technology strategies to provide health information access to hard to reach populations. Of special focus are low-literacy and non-English speaking groups. Our materials are in multiple formats - handouts, audio, multimedia, web-video, and iPod video. We have had the content migrate off of the computer platform to iPods, televisions (via cabled iPod), radio and simple MP3 players (a solder in Iraq). Audio is our most accessed format (even more than handouts). Some of the languages we work with are new or come from mainly an oral tradition so formats other than written are especially important. I am just beginning to explore mobile phone strategies as this technology has penetrated into every group and is easier for many to access that computers/internet. The one thing we have not explored (due to lack of funding and staff) are social media strategies."
"We do live online chats for health information M-F from 10am – 1:30pm. We have been doing these chats for about 3 years. We conduct about 200-250 chats per month with people who have general health information requests."