A new report from a consortium representing six Gulf States lays out how to make health information exchange among states part of disaster preparedness and response.

The effort, begun in late 2010 and supported by the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT, included representatives from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. Recommendations in the report pertain to other states, as well. A major goal of the initiative is to incorporate disaster planning earlier in health information exchange projects, according to a new ONC blog posting.

Recommendations include:

• Review state disaster response and governance policies, as they may not address the sharing of health information during a disaster.
• Develop standard procedures to share electronic health information across state lines before a disaster occurs.
• Establish a waiver of liability for release of records and to default state privacy and security rules to existing HIPAA standards in a disaster.
• Engage local HIEs, and private and public health information networks such as delivery systems, insurers, and electronic health records vendors, to increase sources from which health information may be exchanged. “Health information sharing during a disaster should not rely solely on the State HIE, but on a more effective network of health information-sharing networks.”
• Consider a phased approach to building interstate HIE capabilities. The report includes a three-phased approach as a roadmap for state HIEs to consider.

The report is available here.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Job opportunities at NLM, NIH
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/about/jobs/jobs.html

2013 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) Now Available

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/so12/so12_2013_mesh_avail.html

A New System of Registry Number Identifiers for Chemicals in the MeSH Database

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/ja12/ja12_fda_unii.html

Future Plans of the 2011-2012 NLM Associate Fellows

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/associates_2011_2012_plans.html

MEDLINE/PubMed Year-End Processing Activities

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/so12/so12_yep.html

New App is Authoritative Guide to NLM Mobile Resources

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/mobile_gallery.html

New Style and New Content for ClinicalTrials.gov

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/ja12/ja12_clinicaltrials.html

NISO Publishes Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) Standard

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/jats-niso.html

NLM Announces “Pick Your Poison: Intoxicating Pleasures and Medical Prescriptions,” on Display through April 12, 2013

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/hmd_pick_your_poison.html

NLM Launches GeneEd, Genetics Education Resource for Grades 9-12

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/geneed.html

NLM Library Operations Division Announces Two Appointments

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/appointments_lo.html

Retrieving History of Medicine Citations in MEDLINE/PubMed

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/ja12/ja12_pm_history.html

What’s New in PMC: Another Facelift

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/ja12/ja12_pmc_redesign.html

ALSO NEW FROM SIS

WISER for iOS 3.0, a universal app for Apple iOS devices, is now available. This new release adds native support for the iPad.  Search WISER’s full set of known substances, employ WISER’s popular Help Identify Chemical capability, and leverage WISER’s protective distance mapping feature with an interface customized for your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. WISER for iOS 3.0 can be downloaded and installed directly from the Apple App Store:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wiser-for-ios/id375185381?mt=8.

More at: http://wiser.nlm.nih.gov/whats_new_iOS_3_0.html.

Government Health IT reported that HHS said Friday that that MappyHealth won a Twitter developers’ challenge and will be “a new Web-based application tool available to public health officials.”  The competition, “Now Trending: #Health in My Community,” was sponsored by HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.  Government Health IT adds, “Currently, the top diseases being tracked by MappyHealth are the common cold, STIs, mosquito borne disease, pertussis, tuberculosis, influenza and gastroenteritis. Moreover, the top five locations for these disease-tracking tweets are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Orlando, Chicago and Los Angeles.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) announced the winner of their app developer challenge ““Now Trending: #Health in My Community.” Mappy Health is a web based application for local public health departments to use to track health concerns in real time in their communities using twitter.

Mappy Health: http://www.mappyhealth.com/

Press Release: http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2012pres/09/20120913a.html

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/slideshow/2012/09/10/30-best-ipad-apps/?intcmp=features#slide=1

Business Week reported this week on the growth of telemedicine in rural areas in an effort to mitigate physician shortages:  http://tinyurl.com/8cwpjyo.

Every day, the government uses social media services like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to communicate with you and provide easy access to government benefits and services.

But unlike most government websites, which are hosted on a .mil or a .gov domain, social media sites are hosted on commercial domains.  Without the .gov or the .mil, it can be difficult to determine which social media accounts are official government sources of information and which are impersonators.

To help solve that problem, we recently launched a social media registry in English and Spanish, where you can confirm the validity of a variety of government social media accounts.  Learn more about the social media registry.

Visit the social media registry to check the validity of government social media accounts.

In two studies published this month by the journal Teaching and Learning in Medicine, the Alliance for Clinical Education described the importance of medical student participation in the electronic health record (EHR).  The Alliance, made up of education leaders from a broad range of medical specialties, was formed to enhance clinical instruction of medical students.  “Currently only 64 percent of medical school programs allow students any use of EHRs, and of those only two-thirds allowed students to write notes with in the electronic record,” says Dr. Maya M. Hammoud, the study’s lead author and associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan Medical School.
http://tinyurl.com/clu2jch
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10401334.2012.692267

Science Translational Medicine on posted an article, “From Free to Free Market: Cost Recovery in Federally Funded Clinical Research.”  The authors examined “some of the hybrid academic-business models in 19 clinical research centers within the Clinical and Translational Science Award consortium that are emerging to address the issue of cost recovery of clinical research that is supported by the United States federal government.”  The authors identified “initiatives that have succeeded or failed, essential supporting and regulatory components, and lessons learned from experience to design an optimal cost recovery model and a timeline for its implementation.” (A subscription may be necessary for access.)
http://tinyurl.com/6oksb32

Join the National Technology Center for an online class taught from July 23 – August 27, 2012: “Teaching with Technology: Tips, Techniques and Tools”!

In this class, you will learn about using technology tools for teaching distance learning courses.  We will discuss options and best practices for asynchronous and synchronous distance classes, as well as “blended” classes that offer both in-person and online options.  Adult learning principles will be reviewed.  We will examine and discuss examples of software and website tools in teaching.

The class is taught “asynchronously” using the Moodle course management system, so you can complete the classwork at a time convenient for you.  Allow approximately 2 hours per week for independent classwork.  There are 4 weeks of assignments, readings, and discussions, with the 5th week saved for a “catch-up” week.  Upon completion of the class you will receive 8 MLA CE credits.

The class is free and open to residents of the U.S.  Class enrollment is limited, so we do ask that you check your schedule to be sure you have time to complete the class.

To register: http://nnlm.gov/ntcc/classes/schedule.html