The Internet has brought the spirit of global communication and collaboration to nurses and other healthcare professionals in ways never before thought possible. These resources are offered to expand your opportunities for discussion, reference, education, and research.
David Rothman is an information services specialist at the Community General Hospital Medical Library in New York who writes the blog http://www.davidrothman.net. I find it a constant source of great information for all types of clinicians, and there are frequently posts about sites of special interest to nurses that are well worth reading.
He recently posted a slide show created by Patricia F. Anderson from the University of Michigan: "Emerging Technologies in Nursing and Nursing Education." The presentation is an excellent overview of the interactive Web technologies that have an overall impact on clinicians and a specific focus on nurses. Sites such as http://YouTube.com, http://Twitter.com, http://Facebook.com, and http://SecondLife.com are offering different ways for nurses to communicate, collaborate, educate peers and patients, and conduct research. By taking advantage of highspeed Internet connections from home, school, or healthcare facility, clinicians can benefit from sound, video, and interactive experiences in virtual communities such as SecondLife.
YouTube presents a special challenge in looking for nursing-related resources. Don't simply search for "nurse." I guarantee you'll come up with sites that don't meet your criteria. If you search "nursetv," you'll find many short videos produced by The Australian Nursing Federation highlighting various nursing specialties. Those videos led me to an interesting video site called "NurseTV" at http://www.nursetv.com/nursetv_channel_guide/. This site has a variety of "channels" on nursing-related news, education, and conferences.
In another post, David referred to an article in http://nurse.com describing the efforts of medical librarians to bring services and information to bedside nurses at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The entire article is available online at http://include.nurse.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080225/MS02/302260011&Sear.
I think nurses are missing something if they haven't investigated blogs written by medical librarians. Experts in finding and assessing information, medical librarians are an resource underutilized by many nurses. While the nature of bedside nursing may preclude frequent visits to the medical library, many hospital and academic librarians are trying multiple means of communicating with their direct care colleagues and bringing information as close to the bedside as possible.
Some university libraries have online communication portals where you can chat online about searching tips, resource availability, and specific information needs. Wright State University is connected to other college and university libraries in the OhioLINK system, and access is available via their Web site (http://www.libraries.wright.edu/services/ask/). Chat services based on instant messaging (IM) technology may be blocked by an institution's information systems department due to security issues. It isn't the communication with libraries that is of concern; it's the technologies employed by IM programs that could make a hospital network vulnerable.
Entering "medical librarian" in Google's blogsearching site (http://blogsearch.google.com/) yields more than a thousand sites, but if you visit a couple of selected sites such as davidrothman.net or http://kraftylibrarian.com, you'll find of listing of their favorite blogs (often under the heading "blogroll"). I've found these especially useful in discovering sites I consider high value. Visit a medical librarian's blog, communicate electronically, or visit one in person. You'll find colleagues who want to provide you with the right information at the right time to care for patients.
Contributed by
William Perry, MA, RN