Progress Reports
July 23, 2007 - First Face-to-Face FCHIN Steering Committee Meeting in Orlando
Purpose of meeting: Explore possible ways for librarians across the state to collaborate to deliver medical and/or consumer health information to residents of Florida.
Meeting held at the Orlando Public Library, 9:30am-3:00pm. This first meeting was supported by funds from the Florida Health Sciences Library Association; individual travel and food costs borne by members of the steering committee.
Attended by Janice Kelly, Executive Director of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine Southeastern Atlantic Region(NN/LM SE/A) to: 1) inform steering committee of mission, goals, services and outreach services of the NN/LM SE/A; 2) inform on funding opportunities such as health professional outreach projects, consumer health outreach projects, GoLocal projects, training awards, exhibit awards, Express Outreach Project award, Express Library Technology Improvement awards, urban projects and others including the one we applied for, the Express Planning Award; and 3) inform committee of other statewide planning efforts in VA, AL, GA, TN, MD, and NC.
Jean Shipman, Director, Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences, Virginia Commonwealth University, attended the meeting and discussed her experience with developing a statewide plan in VA and reported on the MLA/NLM Health Information Literacy Project. Chuck McClure, FCHIN member and Director of the FSU Information Institute, discussed needs assessment approaches. The meeting adjourned with many questions to answer about defining a Florida Medical and Consumer Health Information Network. [Note: we decided later in the year to drop the "medical" and focus on "consumer health."]
August 21, 2007 - Second Face-to-Face FCHIN Steering Committee Meeting in Orlando.
Meeting held at the Nova Southeastern University Educational Center with lunch provided by Nova Southeastern; facilitator costs paid by the Florida State University College of Medicine AHEC; and individual travel and other food costs borne by members of the steering committee. The meeting facilitator, Cynthia Olney, is an evaluation specialist and a consultant for the NN/LM Outreach Evaluation Center, University of Washington, Seattle. Olney also consulted for the North Carolina consumer health information initiative including the first MedlinePlus "Go Local" service. Discussion centered around developing a mission statement and goals. A 2-page mission statement was developed as an outcome of this discussion and included the following ideas:
- Empower people of Florida to make informed health decisions
- Provide a well-organized, easy-to-use online resource that will become the primary resource that Floridians will use to find health information
- Provide easy access to consumer health information (e.g., ratings on hospitals; how to find specialists in the state), patient information (e.g., disease-related or prescription drug information), and quality health information for health care, public health and information professionals to give to patients
- Improve equality of access to health information
- Increase awareness among target population (Florida residents, patients, and health care, public health and information professionals) of health information that is available to them at no cost
- Improve the skills of target populations to locate and use health information
- Leverage appropriate technology (including humans) to provide health information to meet individualized needs
After identifying a number of goals during a brainstorming session, members voted the following six as most important for phase 1 of the project:
- Identify funding resources
- Develop managerial structure
- Partner with existing agencies
- Create a web site that meets the needs of Florida residents
- Organize information to be usable to a broad range of users
- Identify consumer health information
Funding models were discussed for moving forward. At this point, we are an all-volunteer model. No funding sources have been identified and pursued. (Still the case as of May 2008.)
[Note: Three other statewide consumer websites were identified and discussed as possible models for Florida: AZHealthInfo; NC Health Info; and Ohio's NetWellness. The developers of each were contacted for additional information.]
It was decided to apply for one of the NN/LM Express Planning Awards. Barbara Shearer submitted the proposal on behalf of the steering committee. It was subsequently awarded and Shearer is currently chair and project manager.
Mark Flynn, Director of the Florida Electronic Library, and Barbara Shearer were charged with contacting the Agency for Health Care Administration to determine if AHCA and FCHIN could partner on delivering consumer health information resources to Floridians.
November 30, 2007 - FCHIN Teleconference
Members were notified of new AHCA initiative and consumer health information website called FloridaHealthFinder.gov. This called for an immediate change in course of the FCHIN away from developing a new website that would possibly duplicate the FloridaHealthFinder.gov site and towards collaborating with AHCA and the Consumer Health Information and Policy Advisory Council. Upon talking with the Interim Director of the Florida Center for Health Information and Policy Analysis, Beth Eastman, Barbara Shearer and Mark Flynn were asked to present at the upcoming December 4 meeting of the Advisory Council on the FEL and on FCHIN.
December 4, 2007 - AHCA State Consumer Health Information and Policy Advisory Council
Flynn and Shearer presented at the Advisory Council meeting on resources of the Florida Electronic Library of most potential value to the developers of the FloridaHealthFinder.gov site and conveyed interest by FCHIN to identify areas of collaboration with the Agency. Dr. Agwunobi, the Secretary of AHCA at the time, asked the AHCA staff to work with the FEL and FCHIN "to determine possible avenues of collaboration for the expansion and enhancement of the current website as quickly as possible."
December 7, 2007 - FCHIN Teleconference
Members were brought up to date on meetings with AHCA and discussed the agenda for the upcoming third face-to-face meeting of the FCHIN. A need to break into smaller committees was suggested.
December 10, 2007 - Third Face-to-Face FCHIN Steering Committee Meeting
Funded by the NN/LM Express Planning Award and hosted by Nova Southeastern in Orlando, members provided their own travel expenses for this meeting. Cynthia Olney, Evaluation Consulting, was the facilitator. Guests included Karen van Caulil, Chair of the Public Relations Technical Workgroup, Consumer Health Information and Policy Advisory Council, and Executive Director of the Health Council of East Central Florida as well as two AHCA staffers, Cheryl Barfield and Amber Bell. Janice Kelly, Executive Director of the NN/LM SE/A, provided information and guidance to the committee on GoLocal and other outreach opportunities.
Van Caulil described goals of FloridaHealthFinder.gov:
- Provide accurate, usable, up-to-date quality and outcome measures to allow consumers to make well-informed decisions about health care.
- Provide a health assessment module that will allow consumers to calculate out-of-pocket expenses
- Provide consumers with a personal health record that can be shared among a patient's health care providers
- Develop virtual communities around support groups
The FCHIN Steering Committee identified the following areas for collaboration:
- Continue to solicit consumer feedback and evaluate the web site. One FCHIN committee members suggested that AHCA could use the steering committee as a usability and functionality focus group.
- Integrate cutting edge Internet technology to establish a virtual community on Florida Health Finder. Mark Flynn said that the Florida Electronic Library (FEL) and FCHIN could help with this goal. FEL is launching a new 5-year planning cycle that will include enabling new technologies, such as communities of interest around content, using threaded discussions that do not require moderators, and doing public programming through web technology (podcasts)
- Promote the Florida Health Finder web site. Committee members suggested a number of groups that FCHIN can access to promote Florida Health Finder. State library associations, like the Florida Health Science Library Association, are one obvious venue. Some organizations represented on the steering committee can help with outreach to K-12 schools and aligning content to school curriculums. Area Health Education Centers (AHECS) can do outreach to schools through their work with school nurses and can promote the web site through health professional continuing education classes.
Other Action Items included:
- Janice discussed Go Local guidelines and requirements. No one on the committee was prepared to serve on a Go Local committee at that time due to time constraints. Linda Butson volunteered to put notices on state library listservs asking for interested librarians who might want to form a committee to develop a Go Local.
- Shearer asked for volunteers for the AHCA Web Site Technical Workgroup and the Public Relations Technical Workgroup. [Shearer then submitted the names to AHCA and as a result Kaye Robertson, Barbara Shearer and Pat Clark were appointed to the Public Relations Technical Workgroup; Mark Flynn was appointed to the Web Site Technical Workgroup.]
- Review of funding sources report by Chuck McClure, Cheryl Dee and Rachel Mick. It was decided that a more concrete plan was required before proceeding.
January 29, 2008 - First Public Relations Technical Workgroup meeting
Attended by Kaye Robertson, Barbara Shearer and Debra Fleming (Web Manager for the State Library and Archives), a communications plan for marketing and expanding the FloridaHealthFinder.gov site was discussed.
Outcomes and action items:
- Kaye Robertson volunteered to host a consumer health information booth at the 2008 Senior Health Fair on March 30; the booth featured the first roll-out of FloridaHealthFinder.gov publicity materials.
- Mark Flynn was asked by Beth Eastman to research content on the FEL and identify ways to link FEL content with the FloridaHealthFinder.gov content.
- Beth Eastman was tasked with contacting the State Librarian to explore cooperative partnerships regarding training and/or training the trainer initiatives in Florida public libraries.
- Beth Eastman was tasked with contacting the Florida Department of Education representative to the Advisory Council, Kate Kemker, to explore cooperative partnerships regarding K-12 health curriculum initiatives.
February 14, 2008 - FCHIN Teleconference
Robertson and Shearer reported back to Steering Committee on Public Relations Workgroup activities.
Linda Butson reported back on 4 librarians in Florida interested in Go Local: Deb Lawless, St. Vincent's Jacksonville; Chery Dee, Library and Information Science, USF; Roxanna Tovrea, Bartow Public Library; and Linda Ampol, Library Resource Coordinator, Martin Memorial Health Systems. [Note: Janice Kelly approved use of FCHIN Express Planning Award funds for travel if these librarians would like to meet as a committee to discuss forming a Go Local site. As of May 21, $1,000 remains in the FCHIN budget.]
Chuck McClure and Mark Flynn reported on their needs assessment of public librarians and consumer health resources: survey and focus groups as well as use data from the FEL. [Note: A preliminary report has been drafted and was distributed to steering committee members in May 2008.]
Shearer and Terri Ottosen, NN/LM SE/A Consumer Health Outreach Coordinator, discussed the CHIS Certification including ways to provide statewide training for public librarians.
March 13, 2008 - Full meeting of the State Consumer Health Information and Policy Advisory Council
Attended by Shearer. Report provided by Karen van Caulil on activities of the Public Relations Workgroup. New Secretary of AHCA, Holly Benson, J.D.
March 27, 2008 -FCHIN Teleconference
Updates on needs assessment; deep linking from Gale products into FloridaHealthFinder.gov; Go Local; Nova Southeastern healthfair; Advisory Council meeting; Solinet training programs and possibility of Multi-type library cooperative/FCHIN/NN/LM SE/A training programs provided. Layton proposed a communication subcommittee and volunteered to chair. Need to locate volunteers including those outside FCHIN steering committee. It was announced that FHSLA theme this year is "State of the State and issues of significance to the state health sciences librarians" with speakers on RHIO, FEL and Public Relations Workgroup
April 14, 2008 - Teleconference with FCHIN, Multi-type Library Cooperatives, and NN/LM SE/A
This meeting was called by Charlie Parker to determine interest by Multi-type Library Cooperatives in participating in a consumer health information training series. Janice Kelly and Terri Ottosen offered to provide up to 24 consumer health information workshops in Florida over the next 18 months starting in September 2008. Shearer and Terri Ottosen are developing promotional material; FCHIN will sponsor; Multi-type Library Cooperatives will host including registering attendees for workshops; and NN/LM staff will provide the training sessions in both online and in-person formats
May 29, 2008- Fourth Face-to-Face FCHIN Steering Committee Meeting
Held in St. Petersburg in conjunction with the Florida Health Sciences Library Association; travel funded by the Express Planning Award; meeting room provided by FHSLA.
Report and timeline of accomplishments reviewed. Items noted of particular value were: getting together, talking and learning each others' perspective, sharing information, and building trust was the most valuable accomplishment. Also mentioned was working with the [Florida] Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA); determining GoLocal interest; and the 2-pager about FCHIN.
There was discussion on the role of FCHIN within AHCA and both the similarities and differences in each of our goals.
The MLA Consumer Health Information Specialists Certification was discussed and the benefits of local vs. distance or web classes.
Review of the data from the FEL/FSU needs assessment on public library and school needs to provide better consumer health information via the Florida Electronic Library.
Three subcommittees of FCHIN were formed: Communications; Education & Training, and Content.
October 29, 2008 - Presentation at the Southern Chapter, MLA Meeting
A poster, Making Magic: Joining Forces to Create a Statewide Consumer Health Information Network, was presented the Southern Chapter, MLA Meeting. It was authored by:
- Beth Layton, Deputy Director, Health Science Center Libraries, University of Florida
- Barbara Shearer, Director, Maguire Medical Library, Florida State University
- Linda Butson, AHEC Librarian/Assistant Director for Access & Outreach Services, Health Science Center Libraries, University of Florida and
- Cheryl Dee, Assistant Professor, School of Library & Information Science, University of South Florida.
Click here to view a PDF of the poster.