The Research Role of the Librarian at a Community Health Hackathon - A Technical Report

A hackathon is a social event that is focused on building small and innovative technology projects. The 2018 Hackathon hosted by the Washington State University\u27s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine aimed to solve rural health problems in Washington state. One major modification to the regular format of a healthcare hackathon was the inclusion of research librarians. Librarians with health sciences and business expertise provided research and library services at a designated Research Station, which included literature, patent, and internet searches. Participant and hackathon librarian observations, verbal feedback, and librarian survey results demonstrate the positive value/outcome of library services to the health hackathon winners. The winning hackathon teams used the services by the Research Station extensively. Areas of strength for this event included collaboration between librarians, promotion of library services, and efficient information retrieval. Areas for improvement included making regular contact with hackathon teams during the event and clearer signage and marketing

Using Slack to communicate with medical students

Academic libraries often make use of social networks like Facebook and Twitter to connect with their student users. While the Spokane Academic Library at Washington State University also employs this outreach strategy, the health sciences librarian was able to use a new type of social network called Slack to communicate more directly with the inaugural class of the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. As a digital workspace for communication and collaboration, Slack provided the medical librarian with an effective medium through which to post library announcements and updates, as well as have individual conversations with students about library-related questions and concerns

Increasing rural nurses’ awareness of a statewide health information resource: an educational outreach initiative

Background: HEALWA is an online library of evidence-based health information resources that are available to Washington state health practitioners. To increase awareness and use of HEALWA among health practitioners in rural areas, the National Network of Libraries of Medicine Pacific Northwest Region and Washington State University Spokane co-funded an outreach librarian position to provide instruction on using HEALWA. Case Presentation: After attempts at frequent in-person workshops failed due to lack of attendance, a one-hour-long webinar targeted at rural nurses was developed to be delivered once a month. These webinars introduced participating health professionals to HEALWA, including how to set up their access and how to navigate the resource. To accommodate the busy schedules and different learning styles of the target audience, the workshops occurred both as monthly webinars and in-person, when available, in addition to an online self-guided tutorial. Continuing education credit was obtained through the Washington State Nurses Association, and a partnership with the Washington State Nursing Commission improved promotion of the webinars. Evaluations for both the webinars and workshops have been largely positive. Conclusions: The webinar series, coupled with in-person workshops and an online tutorial, reached nurses in rural areas of Washington state to increase awareness of HEALWA. To further facilitate access to HEALWA instruction, a recorded version of the live webinar is in development

Arsenic, Organic Foods, and Brown Rice Syrup

Background: Rice can be a major source of inorganic arsenic (Asi) for many sub-populations. Rice products are also used as ingredients in prepared foods, some of which may not be obviously rice based. Organic brown rice syrup (OBRS) is used as a sweetener in organic food products as an alternative to high-fructose corn syrup. We hypothesized that OBRS introduces As into these products

Rates of Influenza and Pneumococcal Vaccination and Correlation With Survival in Multiple Myeloma Patients

[Background]: Infections are a common reason for hospitalization and death in multiple myeloma (MM). Although pneumococcal vaccination (PV) and influenza vaccination (FV) are recommended for MM patients, data on vaccination status and outcomes are limited in MM.[Materials and Methods]: We utilized data from the global, prospective, observational INSIGHT MM study to analyze FV and PV rates and associated outcomes of patients with MM enrolled 2016-2019.[Results]: Of the 4307 patients enrolled, 2543 and 2500 had study-entry data on FV and PV status. Overall vaccination rates were low (FV 39.6%, PV 30.2%) and varied by region. On separate multivariable analyses of overall survival (OS) by Cox model, FV in the prior 2 years and PV in the prior 5 years impacted OS (vs. no vaccination; FV: HR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.60-0.90; P = .003; PV: HR, 0.51; 95% CI, 0.42-0.63; P < .0001) when adjusted for age, region, performance status, disease stage, cytogenetics at diagnosis, MM symptoms, disease status, time since diagnosis, and prior transplant. Proportions of deaths due to infections were lower among vaccinated versus non-vaccinated patients (FV: 9.8% vs. 15.3%, P = .142; PV: 9.9% vs. 18.0%, P = .032). Patients with FV had generally lower health resource utilization (HRU) versus patients without FV; patients with PV had higher or similar HRU versus patients without PV.[Conclusion]: Vaccination is important in MM and should be encouraged. Vaccination status should be recorded in prospective clinical trials as it may affect survival. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT02761187.This study was sponsored by Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited.Peer reviewe

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1,2,3,4,5,6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Evaluating a Hospital Library's Customized Search Alert Service

A collection of presentations and publications on a hospital library's customized literature search alert service