Friday, October 29, 2010

"Toolkit for Making Written Material Clear and Effective" Now Available


The Toolkit for Making Written Material Clear and Effective is a health literacy resource from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services . Consisting of 11 sections, and free to download, the Toolkit provides details you can use to create written material that is easier for people to read, understand, and use. It includes a brief introduction to writing for a website.

The Toolkit advises using a reader-centered approach and includes sections relevant to writing culturally appropriate documents. Although written for those who work with Medicaid services, the Toolkit is relevant to a much broader audience concerned with user literacy skills. The tips apply to a variety of written materials including letters and reminders to patients, patient education handouts, and satisfaction surveys.

Website referenced: http://www.cms.gov/WrittenMaterialsToolkit/

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

PICO Search Site from MEDLINE -- and Other Mobile Device-friendly NLM Resources

NLM's mobile PICO MEDLINE search page has a new location. The page offers a form that helps you clarify your thoughts and compose a workable research question using the categories of Patient, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome. Then the topics are searched in MEDLINE. The page is designed to be mobile-device friendly. More mobile friendly resources, such as MedlinePlus and a couple of disaster-related resources are also available from NLM.



Websites referenced:
http://pubmedhh.nlm.nih.gov/
http://go.usa.gov/xFb
http://pubmedhh.nlm.nih.gov/nlmd/pico/piconew.php

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mobile/

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Walk Across Texas Begins

Are you ready to up your activity level and work on establishing "the habit of regular physical activity"? Join a Walk Across Texas team! The librarians will be busy earning 830 points (the number of miles from east to west across the state) with their friends and family for the next 8 weeks in support of the hospital's wellness activity. Go Team TexOrVa!


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