University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center

From the Desk of the Director

"Terrific meeting!" "Wonderful conference from start to finish." "[W]hat a great city ABQ is!!!" These were some of the comments received about the 2007 South Central Chapter of the Medical Library Association's Annual Meeting. The Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center (HSLIC) hosted over 180 information professionals from Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas for the Chapter's 30th annual conference at the Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town. The annual meeting rotates among Chapter locations, with New Mexico hosting the event every 10 years. Planning the conference was a stretch as there are few Chapter members in HSLIC, and we couldn't have done it without collaboration from library colleagues at Presbyterian Hospital, Lovelace Foundation, UNM University Libraries, Center for Development and Disabilities (also an exhibitor at the meeting), and the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Public Library. HSLIC employees participated on both the Local Arrangements Committee and the Program Committee for the meeting (see membership list of Local Arrangements Committee, LAC).

HSLIC's own Philip Kroth, MD, MS, kicked off the meeting with a keynote presentation on "Re-imagining the Role of the Health Sciences Librarian in the New Information Economy: An Informaticist's Perspective." Other General Session speakers included Ann Caudell, PhD, RN, who discussed the UNM Hospitals' work toward achieving Magnet Recognition Award status, and R. Philip Eaton, MD, who talked about his family's history with missionary healthcare work in Persia/Iran and its links to delivering electronic health information to providers in rural areas. In addition, the Chapter's Annual Meeting included numerous paper and poster presentations, technology expos, 6 continuing education classes, and, of course, opportunities to network with colleagues in hospital and academic health sciences libraries across the 5-state region.

HSLIC's research projects were awarded 50% of the prizes given at the conference for juried research posters and presentations. The list of HSLIC research posters that won awards is below. Topics covered a broad array of research questions, including cognitive bias, wikis in higher education, changing models of scholarly communications, and the New Mexico tuberculosis movement. Clearly, HSLIC has created a culture of research and scholarship among its faculty.

The 2007 Local Arrangements Committee Brian Bunnett, SCC/MLA Executive Board Liaison, Deputy Dir. Of Libraries, UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas Holly Shipp Buchanan, Co-Chair, Director, HSLIC Dick Carr, Co-Chair, Coordinator of Reference and User Support Services, HSLIC Sally Bowler-Hill, Information Systems Planner, HSLIC Patricia Bradley, Native Services Librarian, HSLIC Ingrid Hendrix, Nursing Librarian, HSLIC Charity Karcher, Pharmacy Librarian, HSLIC Christee King, Collection Management and Special Projects Librarian, HSLIC Peggy McBride, Archivist, HSLIC Sarah Morley, Clinical Services Librarian, HSLIC Amanda Okandan, Medical Librarian, Presbyterian Hospital, Albuquerque Holly Phillips, Coordinator of Resource Access and Delivery, HSLIC

Entertainment opportunities included a festive dinner at the Albuquerque Museum for Art and History, where attendees enjoyed the many visual art and history exhibits while listening to the soothing, Native American style music performed by a local group, Cumulonimbus (one of whose members is a health sciences librarian!). Many attendees took advantage of the 8 dine-around opportunities to visit restaurants across Albuquerque. Finally, the dinner at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center on the last day of the conference gave attendees an opportunity to start their holiday shopping in the Center's extensive gift shop. Both of these venues offered out-of-town attendees a chance to become immersed in the culture of the State.

Planning these social functions also allowed the Local Arrangements Committee an opportunity to give back to the Albuquerque community. The LAC approved the donation of surplus food from the catered events to a local program called the Adelante Desert Harvest Food Rescue Program. The Adelante Development Center, Inc., coordinates food recovery with local restaurants, hotels and caterers by contacting the food preparers and making arrangements for pick-up of surplus food in a safe and convenient manner (for more information, see: http://www.goadelante.org/desert_harvest.html). Seventy pounds of food from the Sunday evening dinner at the Albuquerque Museum went to Healthcare for the Homeless, feeding all of the 80 or so people who came to the center the following morning. Other event food went to Holy Family Parish in the South Valley. As a result of this project Adelante has new contacts for future referrals. They have received food from 8 different referrals based on contacts made as part of the SCC MLA.

Bring Your Own Bag(BYOB) Contest Clan of the Cave Bag—oldest SCC/MLA bag Jurassic Bag—oldest bag The Day the Bag Stood Still –furthest traveled bag All the Pretty Bags—most aesthetically pleasing bag Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bag—the most impractical bag Lord of the Bags—best in show

The food recovery program was but one way the LAC attempted to provide a socially conscious meeting. Other activities included using recycled paper products and distributing the pre-conference program electronically rather than in print. A simple postcard, referring members to the conference website was the single paper method for pre-conference communication. Finally, members of the Local Arrangements Committee decided not to add to the proliferation of conference bags already residing in the closets of their colleagues. We urged members to participate in the "Bring Your Own Bag—BYOB" Contest and had a jury to select awards in various categories (see above).

Holly Shipp Buchanan, EdD
Associate Vice President for Knowledge Management & IT
hbuchanan@salud.unm.edu

Sally Bowler-Hill
Information Systems Planner

HSLIC Does "Outstanding"

HSLIC participated in the Banner Time Keep testing both times this fall and had 100% completion. These trials were done to test the system and allow departments to assess their internal processes and their readiness for January's go live with Banner HR/Payroll. In both instances HSLIC received an "outstanding" score on their participation. The implementation of these modules further integrates units into a UNM enterprise wide system.

Marica Sletten
Business Management Specialist

HSLIC and Maxwell Museum Receive $400,000 Grant for Collaborative Project

Philip Kroth, MD, Assistant Director for Health Sciences Informatics Program Development and Assistant Professor in HSLIC and Heather Edgar, PhD, Curator of Human Osteology for the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology and Research Assistant Professor of Anthropology, UNM, have been awarded over $400,000 in grant funding by the National Library of Medicine. The title of their grant is "The impact of an ethnically diverse, web-based case file in orthodontic education." The two have been working together on the project since 2005, shortly after the Maxwell Museum received a donation of an extremely valuable set of dental casts, intra-oral photographs, X-rays, and patient records from a local orthodontist, Dr. James Economides.

The grant will fund the development of a de-identified, searchable, web-based version of the physical collection which includes photos, X-rays, orthodontic diagnoses, dental casts, and basic patient demographic information, and is housed in the Maxwell Museum's climate controlled storage facility in the Hibben Center. Kevin Wiley and Kim Hagen from HSLIC TECHS will develop the database and software for the web-based tool that will allow users to search a digital version of the collection. The web site and project database will be hosted on servers located in the HSLIC data centers. A user will be able to search cases based on orthodontic diagnoses and basic demographic information (such as age, sex, race, ethnicity) to view the effects of various orthodontic treatments on diverse patient populations.

The collection is extraordinarily valuable as both a teaching and research tool because it represents the racial and ethnic diversity of Albuquerque, which is not present in many other parts of the United States. Creating a virtual, web-accessible version of this collection will make these materials available to students and researchers who are not able to access the collection directly in the Museum. In addition, creating a digital version of the collection will reduce handling and wear on the physical materials, yet still allow global web-based access to the x-rays and photos in the collection. "Most orthodontists train in areas of the United States where they do not have access to the varied racial and ethnic population represented here. The web-based tool will be extremely valuable in education and research for students, practicing orthodontists, and dentists," said Dr. Edgar. "It will also be an incredible resource for anthropologists studying variation in craniofacial growth, development and form, dental morphology and development, and many other fields."

The database that supports the web-base searching tool will be coded with existing National Library of Medicine recommended standardized terminology to ensure accurate searches and integration with other databases in the future. "Dentistry and orthodontics are two areas where the standards for terminology are not as mature as in other areas of medicine," said Dr. Kroth. "This is an excellent opportunity to work with the various biomedical informatics standards organizations to advance the terminology standards in this area."

The evaluation component of the project is being lead by Summers Kalishman, PhD, Research Assistant Professor in the UNM Department of Family & Community Medicine and Edward Harris, PhD, an anthropologist and Professor at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center, Department of Orthodontics. The web-based database will be pilot tested as an educational tool at the University of Tennessee by orthodontic students and faculty. Formalized feedback from these groups will be used to refine the design of the collection search tools, which will eventually be made freely available for use by anyone with internet access the world over.

"This collaboration represents an innovative and truly multidisciplinary team combining expertise from both the HSC and the UNM Main Campus," says Holly Buchanan, EdD, HSLIC Director and CIO for the Health Sciences Center. The prototype of the web-based version of the collection is scheduled to be ready for testing by the end of 2008.

Philip Kroth, MD
Assistant Director
Health Sciences Informatics Program Development

Heather Edgar, PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology, Maxwell Museum

Microsoft Software Available for HSC Faculty/Staff Work-at-Home Use

As part of UNM's new Microsoft Campus Agreement (MSCA) and the HSC's enrollment in it, HSC faculty and staff who use a home computer for UNM work-related purposes have the fully licensed right to install and use Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows, Office 2004 for Macintosh, and/or Windows Vista® upgrade on a personally owned computer.

HSLIC played an important role in establishing MSCA at UNM and helped develop an HSC-specific enrollment agreement that would best meet the campus' needs. Specifically, TECHS staff surveyed current licensing processes, developed a business case for participating in MSCA, negotiated licensing details with Microsoft and then formally requested support from HSC leadership. The HSC Knowledge Management and IT (KMIT) committees provided feedback and served as a communication forum throughout the project. Once the HSC was enrolled, the new UNM IT governance structure allowed HSLIC staff to extend communication about the project beyond the health sciences.

MSCA represents a shift in the way UNM licenses Microsoft software, notably from purchasing individual licenses at a volume discount to an HSC-wide annual license agreement that licenses the newest versions of Microsoft Windows and Office for use by all HSC faculty and staff. With its role of providing desktop support to the HSC campus and experience with other volume purchasing programs such as the Faculty Workstation Project, HSLIC is in a unique position to model enterprise licensing at UNM. Moreover, HSLIC's work has paved the way for other UNM colleges to establish their own enterprise enrollments with Microsoft.

The Work-at-Home software media kits are available by reservation for a small media and handling fee at the UNM Medical/Legal Bookstore in the Domenici Center for Health Sciences Education. HSC employees have the right to acquire any or all of the software titles; they may not acquire multiple copies of a title. To reserve any of the software media kits, HSC employees must:

Please visit the User Support website for important details about the terms and conditions of the MSCA program and licensing fees.

Sally Bowler-Hill
Information Systems Planner

Recent Addition to the New Mexico / Southwest Collection

Fifty Years of Family Medicine in New Mexico: Remarkable Innovators and Recalcitrant Mules at the Ruidoso Rendezvous, by Michael Joe Dupont, was written to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the New Mexico Chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) first annual education conference – the "Ruidoso Summer Clinic" – held in 1958. When the Academy formed in 1947, it adopted the most rigorous training requirements of any medical society, and the Ruidoso Summer Clinic was New Mexico's way of addressing these new demanding standards.

The book also chronicles the history of the New Mexico's family doctors including the individual stories of over sixty frontier doctors who did everything from emergency triage at the site of a car accident to developing innovative partnerships to bring healthcare to the rural underserved of the state. These physicians serve as a "living link to the state's territorial legacy." As late as 1949, almost 87 percent of New Mexico's physicians were general practitioners, the fore bearer to today's family medicine specialists. Three physicians – Artesia’s Pardue Bunch, Roswell’s Earl Malone, and Leland Evans of Las Cruces – are also highlighted for their pivotal role in reinvigorating New Mexico's medical community and the development of the New Mexico Chapter of the AAFP in the late 1940s.

Much of the research for this book was conducted using HSLIC's New Mexico Health Historical Collection (NMHHC). Thanks to the generous donation of the New Mexico Chapter, two copies of the book are available for use in the NMHHC room (223).

Laura J. Hall
Special Collections, Manager

Biomedical Informatics Lectures Given for Second-Year Students in UNM College of Pharmacy

For the third year, Dr. William Troutman from the UNM College of Pharmacy, invited Dr. Philip Kroth from HSLIC's Biomedical Informatics Program to give a series of lectures on topics in Biomedical Informatics and its application in the second-year required course "Pharmacy Informatics and Research." Dr. Kroth lectured on an overview of the field of biomedical informatics, decision support theory, and a review of sentinel biomedical informatics studies. HSLIC's National Library of Medicine Biomedical Informatics Fellow, Dr. Randall Stewart, delivered the lecture on terminology theory and standards. This year a third lecture was added to the series that focused on RF ID (radio frequency identification) technology and its applications in pharmacy.

"Pharmacy is becoming more and more information driven. These lectures are designed to expose our students to the science of informatics and illustrate the importance of this science as it relates to pharmacy practice," said Troutman. "Schools of pharmacy across the country are integrating more informatics training into their curricula. HSLIC's Biomedical Informatics Program has helped us to do the same at UNM."

Philip Kroth, MD
Assistant Director
Health Sciences Informatics Program Development

Laptop Available for Use in HSLIC 4th Floor Phone Booth

HSLIC has installed a laptop computer in the fourth floor private phone booth to allow students to electronically access confidential patient information in a manner compliant with HIPAA guidelines. The laptop is for authorized UNM Citrix users who are responsible for maintaining privacy of protected health information accessed on this laptop and must log off when finished with EACH session.