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With half of its directors planning to retire as part of the demographic transformation of the profession, the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) undertook a leadership development program to encourage and prepare its future library directors. This article describes the association's multipart program in which each component can stand alone or as a sequence in preparation for a director position. It examines in detail one of the components, a successful mentoring program developed with support from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows Program. The authors describe the methodology and findings of a comprehensive qualitative evaluation study of the Leadership Fellows Program. KEYWORDS AAHSL, academic health sciences libraries, evaluation, leadership development, library director, NLM, partnerships, qualitative evaluation DOI: 10.1080/01930820903396970

Describes MEDOC, an index to U.S. government documents in health sciences produced at the Eccles Health Sciences Library at the University of Utah. Both the development of the index from an in-house catalog into a subscription service, and the application of computer technologies in its production are discussed. (CLB)

An emphasis on patient safety and an administrative mandate to have information systems in place in most health care agencies in the USA by 2014 has put pressure on nursing informatics programs to increase the number of graduates. At the same time a need for change in health professions education was emphasized at an educational summit sponsored by the Institute of Medicine. Interprofessional education (IPE) will help to provide needed educational reform in informatics and is defined as planned occasions when two or more professions learn from each other and about each other in a structured manner. This paper discusses an evolving interprofessional (IPE) model of informatics education that has been developed at the University of Utah. Because of interprofessional collaboration, faculty, students, and support staff from both the medical and nursing informatics programs moved into a suite on the fifth floor of a state-of-art technology-rich health sciences education building. The co-located space has enabled the informatics programs to increase activities that promote interprofessional education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the innovative applications of technology in the operations of the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL). Ways in which the AAHSL encouraged technological development by its members; Background on information technology at the time of the formation of AAHSL; Reasons for few substantive information or knowledge domain initiatives from the AAHSL/Group on Information Resources collaboration.

An emphasis on patient safety and an administrative mandate to have information systems in place in most health care agencies in the USA by 2014 has put pressure on nursing informatics programs to increase the number of graduates. At the same time a need for change in health professions education was emphasized at an educational summit sponsored by the Institute of Medicine. Interprofessional education (IPE) will help to provide needed educational reform in informatics and is defined as planned occasions when two or more professions learn from each other and about each other in a structured manner. This paper discusses an evolving interprofessional (IPE) model of informatics education that has been developed at the University of Utah. Because of interprofessional collaboration, faculty, students, and support staff from both the medical and nursing informatics programs moved into a suite on the fifth floor of a state-of-art technology-rich health sciences education building. The co-located space has enabled the informatics programs to increase activities that promote interprofessional education.

Objectives: This paper introduces the special supplement to the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) that documents the proceedings of the "Symposium on Community-based Health Information Outreach" held on December 2 and 3, 2004, at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The goal of the symposium was to explore new models of health information outreach that are emerging as technology dramatically changes the abilities of medical and health services libraries to provide resources and services beyond their traditional institutional boundaries, with particular concern for consumer health information outreach through community-based organizations. The symposium's primary objectives were to learn about successful and promising work that had already been done as well as to develop a vision for the future that could inform the NLM's next National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) contract. Another objective was to review and assess the NLM's Strategic Plan to Reduce Health Disparities with special emphasis on Native Americans., Method: The paper describes the background events and rationale that led to the NLM's decision to convene the symposium and summarizes the supplement's ten other papers, some of which were presented at the symposium and some of which were written afterward to capture the symposium's working sessions., Results: The symposium convened approximately 150 invited participants with a wide variety of perspectives and experience. Sessions were held to present exemplary outreach projects, to review the NLM's Strategic Plan to Reduce Health Disparities, to summarize the research underpinnings for evaluating outreach projects, and to provide a futurist's perspective. A panel of community representatives gave voice to the participants in outreach projects, and sixteen posters describing outreach projects were available, many of them with community representatives on hand to explain the work., Implications: This JMLA supplement provides a comprehensive summary of the state of the art in community-based outreach and a jumping-off point for future outreach efforts.