MHSLA Blog

Medical Apps

Sandy Swanson — Wed, 18 May 2011 19:54:30 +0000

So, Ebscohost has an app. So does VisualDx. FirstConsult has an app, but MD Consult has a mobile web version.

I’m just trying to make sense of this, so I can sound like I know what I’m talking about as I roll this mobile stuff out to my customers. So far, not working!

But here’s a blog that might help: iMedicalApps. The site bills itself as “mobile medical app reviews and commentary by medical professionals.”

iMedicalApps features sometimes lengthy reviews, including pricing information where applicable. You can choose a device type (iPhone, Android, Blackberry) or filter by medical specialty, though the filter isn’t working on my older version of Internet Explorer.

Some of my favorite articles are those listing “top apps” for various constituencies such as “internal medicine residents” or “medical students on clinical rotation.”

iMedicalApps also presents relevant news stories, such as the “Mobile Medical News Roundup,” and reports on recent clinical studies, like “Hospital hand washing compliance improved using a mobile app.

Patient Handouts

Sandy Swanson — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:45:42 +0000

David Rothman is developing a Patient Handout Search utilizing Google Custom Search Engine. The simple design should be easy to use on mobile devices such as tablet PCs.

Printable handouts are culled from free authoritative sources such as UpToDate Patient Handouts, MedlinePlus, Mayo Clinic, Kidshealth.org, and InteliHealth. There are buttons for selecting Spanish language, seniors, low literacy, pediatrics, and large print. Additional languages may be added later.

Thinking critically about “the evidence”

Sandy Swanson — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:43:48 +0000

As a medical librarian, I spend a lot of time with reports of the evidence — studies, guidelines, systematic reviews — upon which evidence-based practice stands.

Recent postings in Dr. Marya Zilberberg’s Healthcare, etc. highlight the need for critical analysis of “evidence-based guidelines” and the studies from which they are built, particularly as the guidelines become the basis for current practice, reimbursement, and our judgment of what constitutes “good medicine.”

Facebook: how does it fit in your professional life?

Sandy Swanson — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 19:05:07 +0000

As a hospital librarian, I work in an environment where Facebook and other social media tools are blocked by an Internet filter. I have a personal account, but I’ve never considered it as an outreach tool, though my parent organization (a health system) has a corporate Facebook presence.

So I found Hilary Davis’ article reflecting on the pros and cons of a professional Facebook presence very thought-provoking. Reconsidering Facebook (at In the Library with a Lead Pipe) discusses the issues of the personal-professional separation, privacy and data ownership concerns, the need to offer access and services where the patrons are, and the increasing business and corporate use of Facebook to reach out to customers.

Facebook is becoming “mainstream,” a trend we’ll need to keep in view.

TED talks: Visualizing Medical Data

Sandy Swanson — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:11:27 +0000

Anders Ynnerman, PhD, studies computer graphics and scientific visualization, with a particular interest in medical imaging. His 16-minute presentation at TEDxGoteborg 2010 highlights new tools and developing medical technologies.

Anders Ynnerman: Visualizing the medical data explosion

NYU Health Sciences Library implements Twitter

Sandy Swanson — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:34:53 +0000

Laika’s Blog summarizes an article from Medical Reference Services Quarterly detailing New York University Health Sciences Library’s implementation of Twitter, Facebook, and a library blog “to give users as many options as possible to keep current with library news, resources, and services.” The article includes a flowchart illustrating how information created in one of these sources flows to the others without duplicating effort. A free companion program, CoTwitter, is also described; CoTwitter allows the workload of creating “tweets” to be shared among the staff.

Cuddy, Colleen , Graham, Jamie and Morton-Owens, Emily G. (2010) Implementing Twitter in a Health Sciences Library. Medical Reference Services Quarterly 29(4): 320 — 330
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02763869.2010.518915

The Google Connection

Sandy Swanson — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 21:59:36 +0000

Well, I’m geeked.

I read in the December CCL Outlook that Proquest and Ebsco have entered a relationship with Google Scholar that allows libraries to set up links from Google Scholar results page to the fulltext found in their databases. The enduser uses the “Scholar preferences” link in the upper right corner of the Scholar search screen , searches for his or her library name(s) in the “Library Links” section in the middle of the page, and selects the resources available. Save preferences, and it’s good to go.

Looks like I have some behind-the-scenes work to do, to get this set up for my patrons; I found my Proquest but not my Ebsco databases. I also found one of the statewide Gale subscriptions, which seems to work perfectly well.

I work in a tiny hospital library. High-end link resolvers and meta-search engines aren’t in my budget; so any time I can link fulltext to search results on the cheap, I’m a happy camper.

CCL Outlook also reports on a couple of free tutorials:

20 things I learned about the web , an interactive ebook explaining concepts such as “what is a browser?”, Javascript, TCP/IP, and cloud computing. Requires a browser that can handle HTML5; that rules out my hospital PC!
Google Search Manual at the Google Tutor blog, providing “tutorials, tips and advice for Google users.

2010 in review

Sandy Swanson — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:41:28 +0000

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 6,400 times in 2010. That’s about 15 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 22 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 201 posts.

The busiest day of the year was January 5th with 53 views. The most popular post that day was Medical & Science Cartoons.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were mhsla.org, en.search.wordpress.com, mycrazyreader.info, bigextracash.com, and twitter.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for science cartoons, library humor, humorous pictures, science cartoon, and mrsa cartoon.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Medical & Science Cartoons December 2007

Friday fun February 2008

SWOT analysis for Web 2.0 tools May 2008

Slide Sharing sites December 2007
2 comments

University of Michigan’s digital repository now available through PubMed December 2007
1 comment

Older readers embrace e-readers

Sandy Swanson — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 21:46:39 +0000

It’s always interesting to watch the state-of-the-art, bleeding edge technology become a standard. One way to tell when a technology is approaching that state: we start to observe it in the hands of older people who haven’t been “early adopters.”

A couple of retired physicians now call on me to email them articles from the latest journals. The technology has been around a while, but it seems that high-capacity personal email boxes and high-quality personal printers are now more readily available and easy to use.

And my mom is learning advanced Google techniques at her public library; high-speed access, sophisticated searching, and reliance on the Internet for daily information needs are also getting to be standard in many homes.

An article in the Omaha World-Herald suggests that another technology is becoming widely accepted: the tablet-type e-reader. Older Readers Kindle Fondness for E-Readers reports that larger type size, easy-on-the-eyes backgrounds, convenient downloads and ease of use are making e-readers popular among seniors.

It will be interesting to see how this technology affects library services.

New AMA policy: Professionalism in the Use of Social Media

Sandy Swanson — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 20:53:17 +0000

The American Medical Association just posted “Professionalism in the Use of Social Media” , a policy statement issued by the House of Delegates at its 2010 Interim Meeting. The policy stresses maintaining professionalism, privacy, and patient-physician boundaries.

Reaction to the policy amongst medical/industry bloggers is mixed.

Dr. Bertalan Meskó (ScienceRoll) and John Mack (Pharma Marketing Blog) suggest that the policy is too little, too late. “The cow has left the barn,” as John Mack puts it; doctors are using social media and find it useful.

Dr. Meskó points us to Medicine and Web 2.0, an online course giving practical information for the physician using social media.

Stephen Welch (executive editor for Chest), in It Ain’t Rocket Surgery , applauds AMA for “pushing this out in front of docs and generating discussion about the use of social media by physicians” but notes that the policy is “too general and seems more like a warning in some areas than a policy.”

Want to read more? Keep up on this topic with Google or Google Blog searches.