NLM Georgia Biomedical Informatics Course

Edit: Transcript http://bit.ly/13FwsOD 

NLM Georgia Biomedical Informatics Course
Thursday, December 18, 2014
9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific

Join us this Thursday as we discuss the most recent NLM Georgia Biomedical Informatics Course and the value of such learning opportunities for medical librarians and other informaticians. For many years, this course was held at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, but as of last fall it has a new home in the north Georgia mountains and new hosts from the Greenblatt Library at Georgia Regents University. The first Georgia course took place last September with fourteen medical librarians in attendance along with several healthcare providers, researchers, and health systems administrators.

This course is taught by nationally renowned experts in biomedical informatics, who also happen to be very friendly and approachable! Topics included controlled vocabularies, mathematical modeling, electronic health records, meaningful use, disaster information, and information visualization, to name just a few. There were also gummy bears, rocking chairs, zombies, golf carts, big turtles, and constellations. You can read more about the course here, and you may also want to read what some librarians thought of a previous course.

Alison Aldrich (@aldricham) participated in the fall course and will be your host this week, and hopefully a few of her classmates will join in as well. If you are reading this and have questions in advance, please leave them in the comments so we can better prepare for Thursday night. See you then!

UPDATE: Here is a summary presentation I put together for my OSU colleagues a few weeks ago. Keep in mind this is just a sampling of content. Boiling down a week of intensive training into a 45 minute overview was a challenge, so we'll see how 60 minutes, 140 characters at a time goes ;)

Medical Terminology

Edit: Transcript http://bit.ly/12TGnPa

Medical Terminology for Librarians
Thursday, December 11, 2014
9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific

Join Margaret (@mehlibrarian) and Mike (@mscully66) for an introduction to medical terminology, Thursday, December 11, 9PM ET.

It may seem as if medical terminology is used to obscure, but it is actually used to clarify and to specify. Once you know the basics, it helps when the MD requesting a literature search presumes you know his terminology.

Most medical terms are constructed from roots, prefixes and suffixes, usually Latin or Greek:

• neuro- , append- ,- plasm, ortho- , athero-, pedi-, geriat- , podia-, tibia-
• intra- , inter-, hypo- , hyper-, endo- , neo-
• -ectomy, -otomy, -osis, -itis

Unlike regular dictionaries, medical dictionaries, for example this one from mediLexicon, include such roots, prefixes and suffixes, such as “intra-“, so they can be used as resources to deconstruct and then reconstruct words.

MedlinePlus also has a medical dictionary plus a tutorial on understanding medical words

It can also help to have to have a couple of medical guides on hand. Some guides are available through subscriptions like AccessMedicine - Clinician’s Pocket Reference, for example. But you might also find print guides handy as well.  Internal Medicine Clerkship Guide (Mosby) and Wards 101 pocket: Clinician’s Survival Guide are both helpful to learn more about tests and terminology related to different specialties.

If you have questions about medical terminology, please join us.

If you have a favorite resource, please come and share it.  

Maybe you have a tried and true way to ask about an unknown topic without looking like an idiot.  We’d love to hear it.

See you Thursday.

Google Glass Capstone

Edit: Transcript http://bit.ly/1AoEeXL 

Google Glass Capstone
Thursday, December 4th 2014
9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific
Host: Kimberley Barker @KR_Barker


Hi, everyone!

I hope that you'll join in on the chat at 9PM Eastern, as I share the experience of working on a Google Glass capstone in the Health System at the University of Virginia.

If you're not familiar with Glass, have a look at these resources:

Wikipedia article

Google Glass: What it does


There are many concerns regarding Glass and privacy, with Glass having been banned by some places.

Below is a list of articles that are worthwhile reading on the topic:

Google Glass Doesn't Have a Privacy Problem. You Do. 

Google Glass and Privacy

This organization also provides some interesting reading on the steps that are being taken in response to Glass (N.B. This EPIC is not the EMR).


72% of Americans Refuse Google Glass over Privacy Concerns


Google Glass Users Fight Privacy Fears


Capstone Background
I was invited to be a part of this capstone by Dr. Forest Calland, whom I met during my time in the Leadership and Academic Matters program. Also on the team is a Systems Engineering professor, and four 4th Year engineering students. The group began meeting at the end of September, with two two-hour sessions per week. I am only able to attend one of them because - hello, real life!- I have to pick my son up from school and the Tuesday meeting is from 4PM-6PM. The Friday meeting is from 2PM-4PM, which fits much better with my 7:30AM-4PM workday :)


Capstone Goals/Processes
The capstone's goals and processes have shifted somewhat, as we took some time to work out exactly what it was that we wanted to accomplish, and then how best to go about that. Our basic goal is to investigate whether or not learning, standard work, and training in the Health System can be improved through the use of Glass. The Systems Engineering professor and clinician have worked together on many projects over the last decade. They are both passionate about patient safety, and are hopeful that Glass (and the tutorial app that we are creating for it) can be used to bolster it- this ties in nicely with the Health Systems new-ish Be Safe initiative.


Team Roles
The Systems Engineering professor has tons of experience with designing and implementing projects, IRB, setting up studies, publishing, etc. She also takes the lead on directing the work of the students, who are doing the heavy-lifting with coding the app. The clinician of course provides his years of experience in various healthcare settings. My role is to perform lit searches, as well as current news articles. I believe that I also serve the team as someone who knows enough about technology to be up-to-speed on the device itself, but is ignorant enough about coding and systems that I ask questions that "normal people" (other clinicians, etc) might ask. I like to believe that this is helpful when we're discussing design issues.

The Experience So Far
I wrote about my initial impressions of Glass on my blog back in November .
Besides the amazing discussions in which I am fortunate to engage on Fridays, the coolest experience has been when the students and I had the opportunity to observe a surgery in order that we might get a better sense of how Glass should usefully function in an operating room (there's a photo of us below, taken with Glass- I'm the short one, and no: I am NOT trussed up in a straitjacket!).

Hopefully, this gives you some useful background for the chat :)

See you at 9PM!
Kimberley