Lister Hill Letter
Newsletter of the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences at UAB

July/August 1999

Update: Project MedTrain

As reported last year, the UAB Lister Hill Library has been involved in a project to train rural Alabama healthcare professionals in the efficient use of the Internet to communicate with other health professionals and to access health-related information.  Titled "MedTrain," and funded through a subcontract with the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM), the project is spearheaded by Joan Lukins with the assistance of Jack Smith, Nancy Clemmons, Ryan Garrett, and Kay Hogan Smith.  Now in its fifteenth month, the MedTrain team has completed work in two of the seven counties targeted by the project, Greene and Chilton.  In January Joan, Jack, and Nancy (with technical support from Ryan) conducted a 3 hour CME accredited class in Eutaw at the Family Health Care clinic on the use of the worldwide web in clinical practice, highlighting such useful sites as the National Library of Medicine and its free database access methods, PubMed and Internet Grateful Med.  Since communication with other professionals is so important to practitioners, especially those in isolated areas, a MedTrain email discussion list and website (http://www.uab.edu/lister/medtrain) were established to provide support to those receiving the training.  As the terms of the proposal dictated, one of the two new computers used in the training plus the printer and fax machine were left at the site for 30 days so that the trainees could continue to practice their skills.  (The Family Health Care clinic happened to have purchased a few new sets of equipment prior to the training as well).  Follow up training was also provided in Eutaw in February and March.  This process was repeated in Clanton at the Chilton Medical Center in March, April and May.

So far the MedTrain project has trained more than 32 health professionals in the effective use of the Internet to help them improve their clinical performance. Ms. Lukins reports that evaluations have been overwhelmingly positive, with the patient education handouts available on the links from the MedTrain website particularly welcome.  Those receiving the training at Chilton Medical Center were so impressed, they purchased a new set of equipment similar to that loaned by the project, in order to continue to practice their new skills.  The project will continue with Bibb, Hale, Perry, Pickens and Sumter counties through Spring 2000.