OK it’s 7 days to go to the implementation of Search 2.0 the new route to literature searching in the NHS from the National Library for Health. So we thought we dust off the guides from the NLH Search 2.0 SHA Representatives group (this post is from Resource Guide 1: Overview), adapt the guides where we felt we needed to and give you seven days worth of tip off of the goodness to come. Never fear though, if things aren’t as smooth as we hope, the Dialog databases haven’t gone anywhere for the moment (as for the red spot search logo we don’t know the reasons behind it either but any excuse to get in a few minutes practice for this year’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Clearly red is the new black!)

Searching the National Library for Health

Currently there are six elements (with a seventh in development) of the library that you can search:

1. Evidence based reviews - synthesising known evidence, these secondary sources e.g. the Cochrane Library should be used when you want a quality review of the best available evidence.
2. Guidance - if you are looking for international, national guidelines or care pathways, start here.
3. Specialist Libraries - offering rapid access to the latest quality evidence by patient group or type of service.
4. Books, Journals and Healthcare Databases (Bibliographic Databases) - use them when you need to search the literature (these will need an Athens password which you can get from the NHS here, providing you work for the service).
5. Images - quality medical images/photos/graphics.
6. For Patients - quality assured information for patients.
7. Drugs Resource - is under development… as soon as we can tell you about it, we will.

Searching the Resources

Easy Search

The search box appears at the top of the National Library for Health page. You can use the check boxes to select the types of resources you want to search.

you can construct your search using the following linking terms:

• AND - to make sure the words used appear in the results - this will limit your search results.
• OR - to create an either/or link to expand your search
• NOT - to exclude a word from a search (this will limit your search).
• EXACT PHRASE - by putting your search in “speech marks” you will search for the phrase as you type it. This technique also works with Google and other search engines and is a Fade top tip to find relevant material on the internet.

Advanced Search

The advanced search option allows you to select from the range of NLH resources for inclusion in your search. It also allows you to limit a search to materials from discrete date ranges and to particular elements of a record.

If you are logged into the library you can search accross the range of journals and e-resources available to you through your Athens password.

Just hit the search button when you’re ready to search.

Search results will be displayed by type in a results bar accross the top of the page.

The added advantage with logging in is you can of course save your search to return to at any point you log-in to NLH.

Saving Search Results

To save results requires you to be logged into Athens (which you can get from the NHS here, providing you work for the NHS). Check the check boxes of the items you want to save and then click the button. Alternatively just click on Save Search Result for individual items.

To retrieve items you’ve saved when you’ve logged in with your Athens password jsut click on the Saved Search Results link in the MY SEARCH section of the page.

This is also where you can find Saved Search Histories, Saved Search Criteria and your Search Profiles.

E-Mailing Search Results

You can e-mail individual search results by clicking on the More Details link. This will then bring up an e-mail form (shown below) which you can mail to yourself or a colleague you think will be interested in the item. It has space for you to add your own message.

Science Watch from Thomson combines newsletter, regularly updated data, analysiscommentary and interviews on latest scientific developments.  Keep an eye on What’s hot in medicine - to keep up to date with the latest hot topics in the field.  Feeds and podcasts are available and planned on this open web resource.

The Commissioner Volume 3 Issue 3 from the North West Primary Care Librarian’s Group was published today with its podcast ( Standard Podcasts [6:22m]) contents are:

• PBC: Personalise your Improvement with the No Delays Achiever

• Dental Commissioning and Contract Monitoring - Tendering, Procurement & Contracting

• Evaluation of One-Stop Shop (Oss) Models of Sexual Health Provision

• Improving Access to Psychological Therapies implementation plan

• National Infarct Angioplasty Project (NIAP) interim report

• Practice-based commissioning : tips for preparing and pitching a proposal

• Strategic commissioning for older people

• Apply for Beacon Status

• Other documents and conferences

Feed for Podcast

Standard Podcasts [6:22m]

We get asked about places to search for grey literature and haven’t yet blogged about the OpenSIGLE - System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe which provides open access to SIGLE bibliographical references of reports and other grey literature (GL) produced in Europe.
OpenSIGLE combines the ressources of major European information and document supply centres who have joined together in an association known as EAGLE : European Association for Grey Literature Exploitation.  It’s worth noting that the British Library resigned from EAGLE in 2003.

Each centre is responsible for collecting grey literature produced in its own country and for providing details of it

The end of the week has seen us finally get the new Fade Library Website up and running. We’ve had the highs and lows of installing MySQL and PHP. The swear box has earned a few bob. Kudos to Paul at IIS Admin Blog for the clear guidance. Anyway slip over to the site and let us know what you think.

A little late in the week but better late than never is the recording of the fact it’s the National Knowledge Week for COPD over at the Respiratory Specialist Library from the National Library for Health. Ready information on the following topics is available.

• Raising Awareness of Lung Disease
• Risk Factors for COPD
• Preventing COPD
• Access to Stop Smoking Services
• Diagnosing COPD
• Exercise
• Psychological Interventions
• Nutrition
• Surgical Interventions for COPD
• COPD Exacerbations
• Evidence Base

From the Center for Evidence Based Physiotherapy based at the School of Physiotherapy at the University of Sydney, as a database it provides the model for yesterdays OT Seeker.  The aim of PEDro is to make the bibliographic details and abstracts of randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews and evidence-based clinical practice guidelines in physiotherapy readily available.

OT Seeker is a database of systematic reviews and randomised controlled trials relevant to occupational therapy and was developed by OTs at the University of Queensland and University of Western Sydney.

Fade has recently relaunched our podcasts of ‘Another 15 Minutes…Health News from the Fade Library’ using the Podbean service. The service in its free format offers 100Mb of storage for the podcasts that you wish to publish and uses WordPress as a content management system to publish them. The podcast blogs created have integrated streaming players in addition to the feeds for podcast dissemination. For cheap and chearful podcast hosting it’s a good service and the paid for options seem affordable too.

If you want to know how podcasts work, or how to make best use of electronic resources and you work for Liverpool PCT, contact us using the form below.

On a day that NLH are experiencing difficulties it’s worth remembering that you can get at your Athens resources via MyAthens.

The local press brought news of a fascinating site, the e-learning portal of the EU funded project ETSL for the dissemination of Greek, Finnish and English Sign Language for hearing and hearing impaired people. Videos demonstrate sign langauge to you in each language. Cool stuff.

MySugarLevel

Tracking sugar site that charges users for access. Allows users to track and monitor sugar levels.

SugarStats

Site that allows you to monitor your sugar levels along with your foods. It provides users with graphs and trends.

TuDiabetes

Community for those affected by Diabetes. The site contains social networking features such as blogging, adding friends, and groups.

dLife

Diabetes resource that contains Q&A with experts, recipes, the “Wall”, and blood sugar management, among others.

Mindmeister offers online mind mapping (and offline too if you use the Google Gears option).

The free basic account option allows you to:

• Use up to 6 mind maps
• Share mind maps with others
• Simultaneously collaborate on mind maps with others
• Import maps from Freemind and Mindjet MindManager™
• Export maps as RTF, Images or pdf’s.
• Include maps in blogs/websites

Management of your maps via thumbnails is easy and the maps are simply locatable. Use of the tool is intuitive and simple too.

Exporting your maps is a snip too requiring little effort.

Paid for options offer additional features should you need them. Definitely a service worth a look if mindmapping is your thing.

Delivering Choice - major palliative care service improvement plan, from Marie Curie Cancer Care, to provide greater choice for patients in end of life care. The programme has five projects underway across the UK - in Lincolnshire, Leeds, Tayside (Scotland), Barnet (north London) and south-east London.

End of Life Care Programme : the aim of the NHS End of Life Care Programme is to improve the quality of care at the end of life for all patients and enable more patients to live and die in the place of their choice.

National Council for Palliative Care: The National Council for Palliative Care is an independent umbrella body dedicated to keeping you up to date on all areas of palliative care.

Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care: The Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care is the national umbrella and representative body for palliative care in Scotland.

My Journals - Lists all e-journals currently available to you from the NHS, currently including journals like Palliative Medicine and Death Studies. You’ll need an NHS Athen password to use these. If you don’t have an Athens password and work for the NHS you can get one here

Emergency Admissions: A journey in the right direction? by the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) has assessed organisational and clinical aspects of both the immediate and ongoing care of patients admitted as emergencies. The report highlights remediable factors in existing care pathways, particularly the appropriateness, timeliness and frequency of investigations and reviews, the experience of staff and the availability of results, protocols and procedures. They’ve also produced a Self assessment checklist for trusts that allows Trusts to check their progress in adopting NCEPOD’s recommendations following the 2007 report ‘Emergency Admissions: A journey in the right direction?’. This toolkit is for Trust use, and information generated should be shared within the trust.

We love Google at Fade, we’re always using it.  But the first thing we do when faced with any new website or piece of print material is ask the question:

What is this trying to sell us? 

It’s not that we don’t trust anything, it’s just the natural healthy skepticism of the information professional.  The problem that Google presents us is we have to ask ourselves if we trust an awful lot of websites.  That’s why we like services like Intute. Fling into the mix our awareness that Google coverage is far from absolute and you’ll see why we get excited when we find search engines to add to our list of search sources.

Search Medica come from the people behind Pulse (OK, we tend to refer to this as one of the GP comics in our flippant Fade way!) and has several advantages as a search engine.  Like Intute it saves on some of the skepticism.  Material for a particular audience can be limited to that selected by that audience.  You can also limit stuff to NHS sites only, to UK content only or go wild and search the web generally (in which case load up the skepticism screens!).  So if you’re a:

• GP

• Pharmacist

• Nurse

• Medical Student

We’d say give it a go!

GPnotebook is an online encyclopaedia of medicine that provides a trusted immediate reference resource for clinicians in the UK and internationally. Updated continually, our database consists of over 26,000 pages of information.

The site also contains GPnotebook educational modules (GEMS) designed as

• study outlines for GP registrar tutorials

• revision aids for GP registrars

• topic reviews for Foundation Year Two doctors whilst undertaking their general practice attachments

• modules for GPs self-directed learning and a tool for continuing professional development

To make the most of GP Notebook register for an account.

A quick hello to the folk at Lancashire Care Library and Information Service who launches their library blog yesterday.  God bless all who ail in her and all that malarkey!

The North West Commissioning Roadmap is meant for anyone tasked with strategic commissioning in health and social care - it doesn’t tell commisioners what to do, but it does provide guidance, resources and support to help commissioners through the commissioning process.  It has been developed by the Institute of Public Care for ADASS North West, NHS North West, CSIP North West, and the Regional Director of Public Health. The leadership in the North West aim to use this website to encourage more consistent commissioning practice across the region.

As a site it is a combination of local (North West) resources and National resources.

Our friends and colleagues over at the Aintree LIRC have pointed the way to some great resources to support people in writing for publication.

The Equator Network (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency Of health Research - of course with the FADE pedigree we’re liking that acronym!) notes that too often, good research evidence is undermined by poor quality reporting. It is a new initiative that seeks to improve the quality of scientific publications by promoting transparent and accurate reporting of health research. To do this it offers guidance on reporting a range of study types.

Other good resources to support all that reporting of the good things that are happening in the PCT can be found on the E-Learning offered by BMJ Learning, which all Liverpool PCT staff can access with their NHS Athens passwords.

BMJ Learning E-Learning Modules (requires your NHS Athens Password)

How to write a research paper and get it published

How to write effectively

(To get an NHS Athens Password if you work for the NHS in the North West)

If you want training in using this or any other e-resources contact the library using the form below: