Technology Improvement Award Brings Portable Health Literacy Training Lab to Legacy Health

Posted by Patricia Devine on June 23rd, 2015 Posted in: Funding, News from Network Members, Training & Education

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Submitted by Cindy Ramzy, MSLS, Senior Medical Librarian/CME Coordinator, Legacy Health System, Portland, OR, cramzy@lhs.org

As a recipient of a 2014 NNLM/PNR Technology Improvement Award, Legacy Health System’s Library Services was able to create a portable computer lab to bring hands-on training of clinical electronic resources to a Legacy campus for the first time.

One of the key tenets of information literacy, as it relates to healthcare professionals, is the ability to identify appropriate information sources and use them to retrieve relevant information. Legacy Library Services provides access to numerous high-quality electronic resources that are available to fill the knowledge-based information needs of our organization. Library Services makes information literacy training available to staff at all five Legacy campuses to increase awareness of these resources and to ensure fluency in effective search skills. Our goal with this project was to acquire computer hardware and equipment to bring our library literacy classes to the Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center (LGS), which lacks training facilities, and had not previously been the setting for any live interactive training sessions. With this award, we purchased 6 laptop computers (plus storage and charging equipment and a portable projector), in order to offer 13 training sessions to the staff of Legacy Good Samaritan (LGS) on their own campus. In addition, the equipment was used to train the staff of the Orthopedic Rehabilitation Department in the use of library electronic resources at one of their staff meetings.

Project steps:

• Purchase six laptops, storage and charging equipment and a portable projector.
• Schedule location at LGS campus for two classes per month during project period (Oct. ’14 – March ’15).
• Publicize classes each month via broadcast emails, items on LGS announcements webpage, flyers to all LGS departments, and large posters displayed in high-traffic areas.
• Develop class curriculum, materials and evaluations for eight different 30 minute classes: Library Resources Anywhere! (an introduction to our new public website), Simple Searching in CINAHL, Searching Ovid Medline Basic, Searching Ovid Medline Advanced, Natural Standard, Using Clinical Key, VisualDX, and Introducing OneSearch (EBSCO’s Discovery Service).
• Distribute links to all class registrants for a pre-class survey, a post-class evaluation and a two-week follow-up survey, and compile all results.

Implementation of the Technology Improvement Award was carried out primarily by three library staff members. Carol Galganski, Manager for Library & CME Services, Legacy Emanuel Medical Center & Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center AudioVisual Services, was the Project Manager and advised and directed coordination of all facets of the project’s planning and completion. Cindy Ramzy, Senior Medical Librarian, organized the acquisition of new equipment, scheduled classes and rooms, and developed class curriculum, materials and evaluations. Cherie Weintraub, Medical Librarian, was the instructor for all classes and maintained all equipment.

Our primary goals for the project were to acquire the equipment to bring hands-on training for our electronic resources to the LGS and to increase awareness of Library Services. While actual attendance at the 13 scheduled sessions was less than we had hoped, library search requests from LGS staff increased 21% above the number of requests for the same time period (Oct.-March) during the previous year. We are pleased with the increased presence the Library and its resources have at the Legacy Good Samaritan campus and look forward to sharing our computer lab with addition groups at LGS and other Legacy sites in the future.

Cherie Weintraub, MLIS, (third from left) demonstrates the Library’s OneSearch program as the Orthopedic Rehabilitation Department follows along.