Thursday, April 27, 2006

The 2006 JCAHO Manual is now available on the Affinity Intranet

Follow this path : Affinity Intranet > Library > General Reference Links > JCAHO Resources (on the right) > JCAHO Manual

Or just type “JCAHO Manual” into the search box at the top of all the Affinity Intranet pages.

Also known as The Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals (CAMH), the above link offers full-text access to this important regulatory source.

Friday, April 21, 2006

LactMed : A New NLM Database on Drugs and Lactation

LactMed, a free online database with information on drugs and lactation, is one of the newest additions to the National Library of Medicine's TOXNET system, a Web-based collection of resources covering toxicology, chemical safety, and environmental health.

LactMed may be searched at http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?LACT
Or take the following path :
Affinity Intranet > Library > Find Drug Info > LactMed

Geared to the healthcare practitioner and nursing mother, LactMed currently contains over 450 drug records. It includes information such as maternal levels in breast milk, infant levels in blood, potential effects in breastfeeding infants and on lactation itself, the American Academy of Pediatrics category indicating the level of compatibility of the drug with breastfeeding, and alternate drugs to consider. References are included, as is nomenclature information, such as the drug's Chemical Abstract Service's (CAS) Registry number and its broad drug class.

LactMed was developed by a pharmacist who is an expert in this subject. Three other recognized authorities serve as the database's scientific review panel. Ancillary resources, such as a glossary of terms related to drugs and lactation, and breastfeeding links are also offered.

LactMed can be searched together with TOXNET's other databases in a multi-database environment, to obtain other relevant information about drugs. As a work in progress, LactMed will continue to expand with additional drugs and be enhanced with other substances, such as industrial chemicals and radiation.

--From the National Library of Medicine

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Affinity Library Services Welcomes Margo Lambert, MLS

Margo Lambert is the new consumer health librarian working at the Resource CafĂ© in the newly remodeled St. Elizabeth Hospital entrance. Margo received her Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science in 1999. Since that time she has worked as a reference librarian, a children’s librarian, and most recently as manager of the Algonquin Area Public Library, Eastgate Branch in Algonquin, Illinois.

Margo and her husband recently moved from Illinois to Wisconsin because they enjoy the lifestyle here. She considers Wisconsin residents to be warm and friendly and she is happy to have the opportunity to serve them as a consumer health librarian. As a public librarian, she most enjoyed having contact with a variety of library users and creating a library collection that would meet their informational needs. The move to consumer health librarianship is a natural one for Margo, as it allows her to continue to serve people while gaining experience with a different, vibrant aspect of the library profession.

Margo is excited to work in a health care environment during a time in which medical information is becoming available in formats accessible to lay people. She feels honored to be in a position to help people as they educate themselves about their health and she looks forward to representing Affinity Health System by providing library service to members of this community.

Margo can be reached at 920-738-2857.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Featured Resource : The Asian and Pacific Islander Cancer Education Materials (APICEM)

The Asian and Pacific Islander Cancer Education Materials (APICEM)
http://www.cancer.org/apicem

This new website makes it easier for physicians and other health-care providers to communicate cancer prevention and early detection messages to patients by providing one-stop access to patient education materials written in 12 languages.

The Asian and Pacific Islander Cancer Education Materials Web Tool (APICEM) is designed to help Asians and Pacific Islanders with limited English-speaking abilities gain access to authoritative information on how to reduce their risks of preventable malignancies, including cancers of the breast, cervix, colon, liver, lung and stomach.

The new database catalogs and provides links to patient handouts written in the following 12 Asian and Pacific languages: Khmer, Chamorro, Chinese, Hawaiian, Hmong, Ilokano, Korean, Samoan, Tagalog, Tongan and Vietnamese, as well as English-language materials culturally tailored for Native Hawaiian populations. Additional languages and topics will be added as more materials become available.

The Asian American Network for Cancer Awareness, Research and Training (AANCART) and the American Cancer Society (ACS) launched this searchable online database of Asian language cancer materials. This effort is supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

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There are 2 ways to find this link on the Affinity website.

Method 1 : Use the Search Box at top of the Affinity Intranet Pages.
Type in “Asian” or “non-English” or "other than English"
(Patient Education brings up hundreds of items.)

Method 2 :
Affinity Intranet Homepage > Library > Find Patient Education Handouts > Hmong OR Other Languages

We welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions.
Contact Affinity Library Services :
MMC Library 3-0342 and STE Library 8-2324