Category: News

Locating Clinical Guidelines

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) defines clinical practice guidelines as “statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care that are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and harms of alternative care options”.

Access to such concise, evidence-based information stands to improve patient outcomes while decreasing time spent researching. There are a lot of guidelines out there. Make sure you are using the most current guideline and that the guideline you use is a systematic review of the evidence developed by a panel of experts. Currently, there isn’t one place to find all guidelines but read on for several resources available to you that make guidelines available.

Recommended Resources:

ClinicalKey

Select “Guidelines” in the “Browse” menu. In the search box type known topic or guideline. Also, search for specialty guidelines using the “Filter By” option.

DynaMed Plus

Search for your topic. If applicable, “Guidelines and Resources” will be listed in the left menu. Guidelines are pulled from national and international organizations.

PubMed

Search for your topic. On the left-hand side of the page, click “Additional filters”, under “Article type” select “Guideline” and “Practice Guideline” and click “Show”. Now, choose “Guideline” and “Practice Guideline” to limit your search.

Some other helpful resources:

Guidelines International Network (G-I-N) – https://guidelines.ebmportal.com/
A global network that supports evidence-based health care and improved health outcomes by reducing inappropriate variation throughout the world.

Guideline Central Library – https://www.guidelinecentral.com/guidelines/
Free web and mobile database of guideline summaries, calculators, drugs, and other resources.

ERCI Guidelines Trust – https://guidelines.ecri.org/
A publicly available web-based repository of objective, evidence-based clinical practice guideline content developed by nationally and internationally recognized medical organizations and medical specialty societies. [register for a free account to access]

AiCPG – https://aicpg.org/ngc-summaries/
The primary goal of The Alliance for the Implementation of Clinical Practice Guidelines (“AiCPG” or “The Alliance”) is to meet the needs of Guideline Developers and Guideline Users to improve the safety and quality of patient care in the U.S. Healthcare system.

GRADE – https://www.gradeworkinggroup.org/
A working group has developed a common, sensible, and transparent approach to grading quality (or certainty) of evidence and strength of recommendations.

AGREE – https://www.agreetrust.org/
AGREE II is the international tool to assess the quality and reporting of practice guidelines.

CPG Infobase – https://joulecma.ca/cpg/homepage
Database of evidence-based Canadian clinical practice guidelines (CPGs)

NICE Guidelines – https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance
Guidance, advice, and information services for health care professionals from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (UK)

Update to PubMed Central

Update to PubMed Central

On March 13, 2022, the National Library of Medicine will be launching an updated PubMed Central (PMC) website https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ with a modern design.

PubMed Central (PMC) is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM).

In keeping with NLM’s legislative mandate to collect and preserve the biomedical literature, PMC is part of the NLM collection, which also includes NLM’s extensive print and licensed electronic journal holdings and supports contemporary biomedical and health care research and practice as well as future scholarship. Available to the public online since 2000, PMC was developed and is maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at NLM.

March 13, 2022, is the expected change over date to the web interface. You can review the new website at: https://ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2021/06/02/pmc-labs/ until it goes live.

This update represents the first phase of an overall PMC modernization that will help us update PMC in a quicker and more responsive fashion. New features and functionality will be deployed on an ongoing basis.

In advance of the official update, we wanted to remind you of a few details about what’s changing:

    • A redesigned and reorganized homepage
    • More accessible help documentation, reformatted to address key groups using PMC in different ways and to highlight the most important information first
    • A more modern article view
    • A similar look and feel between features in PMC and PubMed.

As part of this first phase of modernization, the search results page will remain unchanged. And for a limited time, the classic version of the article view will still be accessible to help with this transition.

Remembering Dr. Paul Farmer

Paul Farmer, MDDr. Paul Farmer, co-founder and chief strategist at Partners in Health, died yesterday in Rwanda at the age of 62 (NYT Obituary).

His work in Haiti began while he was a student at Harvard Medical School:

“Even as Farmer was studying for his medical degree, he essentially lived in Haiti amid extremely low-income farmers who didn’t even have access to dependable electricity, let alone health care. Farmer was determined to change that.” (NPR).

I can’t do his accomplishments justice, but to quote author, John Green (Washington Post):

“Here is what I want you to know about Paul Farmer: He simply did not accept the idea that inequality of health-care access is natural or inevitable. Because of his belief, and because of the nonprofit health organization Partners in Health that he co-founded, millions of people in some of the poorest nations on Earth are alive today.”

We have many of his books in our collection, including:

The library also has his biography, Paul Farmer: Servant to the Poor, as well as Partner to the poor : a Paul Farmer reader.

You may also wish to watch Bending the Arc, a documentary (also available on Netflix) “the story of Partners In Health’s origins and how founders influenced international movements at the center of some of the world’s most pressing humanitarian crises”.

If you are interested in reading one of his books for an upcoming IHS Library Book Club, please email allison.piazza@shu.edu.

Preprints

What exactly is “Preprint”?
As you read several news publications you may come across the term “Preprint”.  What exactly does that mean and what does a preprint article entail?

A preprint article is a version of a manuscript that is published on an open-access preprint server.  This kind of manuscript is published before any peer-review process.  They are generally published electronically and can be located on publicly available databases or preprint servers.

One reason a group of researchers may choose to do a preprint submission is because of the length of submitting an article through the traditional publication process can take a while.  Preprint allows for the dissemination of information at a faster pace.  Generally, the authors will still seek to have their work published in a peer-reviewed journal at a later date.

Skipping over the peer-review process may seem unconventional but there are some benefits to preprint.  Preprint allows you showcase to your colleagues where your interests lie, as well as establish early claims to your research findings.  Preprints are the fastest way that a researcher can disseminate their knowledge and research and start scholarly conversations.  Since most are located on an open access platform anyone can read them without paying which increases their accessibility and outreach.

It is important to keep in mind that while preprints may be scholarly, they have yet to be formally peer reviewed.  While some preprint servers may have a simple peer review process to determine that the content is legitimate, they don’t necessarily check on the reliability or accuracy of the information.  It is still best to be cautious when reading a preprint paper and to use your best judgement.

Did you know that we have our own Seton Hall Google Custom search for preprints?! A custom search will search multiple preprint servers simultaneously, including researchsquare.com, medrxiv.org, Preprints with The Lancet, semanticscholar.org, biorxiv.org, and outbreaksci.prereview.org.

Preprint Servers Custom Search

If you have any further questions regarding preprint documents reach out to your librarian!

— Kyle Downey kyle.downey@shu.edu

PMIDs, DOIs, and PMCIDs Oh My!

Let’s take a moment to demystify these commonly used acronyms. They are all unique identifiers for an article (like a barcode), which can be used to easily link to or find an article online. The following article has 3 different identifiers assigned to it.

Adeli, Seyed-Hasan et al. “Spirituality in medical education and COVID-19.” The clinical teacher vol. 18,4 (2021): 372-373.

A PMID (such as PMID:33465823) is a unique numerical identifier for an article in PubMed. You will notice every article included in PubMed has a PMID under the citation/abstract. You can search this number in PubMed or in the search box on the IHS Library Homepage to go straight to that particular article.

The International DOI Foundation assigns a unique alphanumeric string to content online known as a Digital Object Identifier or DOI. Most publishers give their articles DOIs because it is the best way to provide links to articles that are persistent or permalinks.

When available, you will also see DOIs included with the citation data in PubMed. In order to “resolve” these DOIs, or make them usable links, simply add http://dx.doi.org/ before the DOIs. Thus, an article with a DOI of 10.1111/tct.13331 can be linked by using http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tct.13331

Finally, PMCIDs are simply unique identifiers for articles that are included in PubMed Central (PMC). PMC8013884. These numbers will be preceded by PMC first.

Keep up with new research using Evidence Alerts

Feel like you’re drowning in a never-ending stream of new studies and articles? What if we told you that there is a free service that can notify you about newly published studies in self-selected key research areas, and that these articles are rated by practicing physicians for relevancy.

EvidenceAlerts, a product of McMaster University and DynaMed, is a continuously updated repository of current best evidence, drawing from 121 core clinical journals. It is pre-rated by trained research staff and then rated for clinical relevance by practicing physicians. Use this free service to set up email search alerts, review the most often read articles in all disciplines from the last 30 days, and run searches across the EvidenceAlerts database.

Sign up for a free account with EvidenceAlerts today! https://www.evidencealerts.com/

Holiday Building and Librarian Information

Happy Holidays from the IHS Library!

The IHS Campus and IHS Library will remain open 24/7 throughout the holiday break, including Christmas and New Year’s Day.

IHS Librarians will be on holiday from Thursday, December 23 – Monday, January 3. Please contact ihslibrary@shu.edu with any questions, and someone will respond to you on January 4.

A Thousand Words: AccessMedicine Infographics

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Combining  pictures and words, infographics provide a powerful visual tool for explaining complex topics and reinforcing learning.

AccessMedicine recently introduced The Infographic Guide to Medicine, a collection of over 600 one-page, high-yield graphic summaries covering multiple specialties and body systems.  These summaries are meant to serve as a point of entry into core foundational topics/concepts for students. The infographics are indexed by system of the body.

AccessMedicine infographics can be downloaded in PDF format. Direct links to specific infographics are also available.  AccessMedicine and the Infographics can be accessed through the IHS Library.

International Day of Persons with Disabilities

December 3rd is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, an annual celebration of people with disabilities.

This years’ theme is ‘Fighting for rights in the post-COVID era’ to recognize people with disabilities were some of the most impacted by the COVID19 pandemic. The International Day of People with Disabilities website calls on “domestic and international public health officials, political representatives, advocates, supporters, and every citizen in every community, to learn from the experiences of people living with disabilities during this pandemic, and push for more meaningful investments into the socioeconomic building blocks which will reduce the barriers faced by people with disabilities in every community on earth.”

Below, we highlight just a few voices of people with disabilities. Click on the links to be taken to the ebook.

How to store your Covid Health Data on your Smart Phone

The state of the digital Covid vaccine card — the bar code that we store on our phones and present to businesses and venues as proof of inoculation — is chaotic.

While some states, like New Jersey and New York, accept digital records as proof of vaccination to allow entry into restaurants and other businesses, states like Alabama and Florida have banned their use. That means anyone who plans to travel in the United States this holiday season has to research the policies at the destination.

Companies like Apple and Google have come up with convenient ways to store and retrieve our vaccine credentials. Apple Support on this topic can be located here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212752

The best method: Apple and Google wallet apps

First things first. To find your state’s policies on digital vaccine credentials, look up its health department website. Some states, including New Jersey and New York, offer so-called SMART Health Cards. These are digital credentials linked to an official database containing your records of vaccination or test results. They come in the form of QR codes, which are essentially bar codes that look like a bunch of black-and-white squares and contain information about your inoculations or test results.

States that work with SMART Health Cards (a full list can be found online) let you visit a web portal to add your credentials directly to the official wallet apps on iPhones and Android phones. These wallet apps are a default place to store the data and can immediately be opened by pressing the phone’s power button for quick access to your health document.

If your health providers use MyChart (EPIC) (a full list can be found here) a QR code can also be generated and added to the official wallet app on the iPhone.

Here’s an example of how to do this on an iPhone in New Jersey:

  • Check to see that you have installed the latest software update for iOS (version 15.1.1). To do that, open the Settings app, tap General and then tap Software Update.
  • Now retrieve your digital vaccine card from your health department. These steps vary by state. New Jersey can download the Docket app to get their vaccine records and the QR code.
    1. Open the Health app
    2. Tap Summary in the bottom-left
    3. Under Vaccination Record, tap Add to Wallet

If you received a QR code

    • You can scan a QR code given to you by your COVID-19 vaccination or test provider or in Docket  to add your verifiable health records to the Health app.
    • Open the Camera app from the Home Screen, Control Center, or Lock Screen on your iPhone or iPod touch.
    • Select the rear-facing camera
    • Hold your device so that the QR code appears in the viewfinder in the Camera app. Your device recognizes the QR code and shows a Health app notification.
    • Tap the Health app notification
    • For verifiable vaccination records, tap Add to Wallet & Health to add the record to the Health app and Wallet app.
    • Tap Done

If you received a downloadable file

    • You can download a verifiable health record given to you by your COVID-19 vaccination or test provider to add the records to the Health app.
    • Tap the download link on your iPhone or iPod touch.
    • For verifiable vaccination records, tap Add to Wallet & Health to add the record to the Health app and Wallet app.
    • Tap Done.

Once you receive the vaccine card, tap on the button labeled “Add to Apple Wallet & Health.” Now you have access to your vaccine card by opening the Wallet app or double pressing the power button.

For Covid test results, you similarly add the document to your mobile wallet using a digital bar code from the state’s health department or your health care provider.

The most basic method: Save a photo

    • Those living in states that don’t provide digital vaccine credentials can carry a digital copy of their Covid vaccine or test record by snapping a photo of it. The next step is to make the photo easy to find. The best way is to save the photo inside a note-taking app, which lets you label the note so it can be easily surfaced using a keyword search.

On an iPhone, here’s how you can store the record in the Notes app:

    • Open your photo. Tap the button in the lower-left corner that looks like a square with an arrow pointing upward. In the row of apps, swipe to the Notes app and select it. Here, save the image to a new note.
    • Now open the Notes app and select the note you just created. Rename the note “Vaccination Record” or “Covid test results.”

About vaccination cards in Wallet

Once you add your vaccination card in the Wallet app, you can view and present it at any time. The front of the card shows your name, the vaccine type, the dates of the doses administered, the issuer, and the QR code.

The full details of your vaccination card won’t be visible until you’ve authenticated with Face ID, Touch ID, or passcode.

Your vaccination card can’t be shared with other iPhone, iPod touch, or Apple Watch users.

Chen, BX. (December 1, 2021) How to Carry Your Covid Health Data on a Smartphone. New York Times. Technology Section.

Apple Instructions: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212752