Supporting Consumer Health: A Hospital Library's Experience in Developing a Nursing Portal

Abstract

Health information libraries in a hospital or other setting can support consumer health information even if they do not consider consumers to be their primary audience. In addition to servicing health consumers directly, the Health information Library at Ridgeview Medical Center wanted to assist consumers indirectly through the support of its internal customers such as nursing professionals. To achieve this, the Library and Web Services Department developed a Patient Education Resources page and Nursing Portal on Ridgeview's intranet that contained consumer-level health information and resources.

KEYWORDS:

• consumer health information
• cooperative ventures
• information technology
• medical librarians
• nurses
• nursing portal

The authors acknowledge Gina Lenz for her insightful assistance in writing this article.

Notes

Comments and suggestions should be sent to the Column Editors: Erinn Aspinall (E-mail: [email protected]), Joy Kennedy (E-mail: [email protected]), Andrea Ryce (E-mail: [email protected]), and Donna Timm ([email protected]).