Author: Jason Curtis

Using KnowledgeShare to keep to date with professional interests

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KnowledgeShare Evidence Updates is our personalised service to keep you up to date with new knowledge and evidence in healthcare.

As well as covering the whole range of physical and mental health conditions and risk factors, KnowledgeShare also covers a huge range of professional interests such as research, management and leadership, patient experience, quality and safety, finance and procurement, service design and using evidence.

Download the complete list of professional topics to see what you could be missing out on, and then use the evidence update form to either join KnowledgeShare, or if you're already signed up we'll update your categories for you.

 

 

Searching for systematic reviews using Epistemonikos

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If you're searching for systematic reviews of evidence, you may find Epistemonikos a useful resource. Unlike the Cochrane Library, this contains systematic reviews from many sources (it does also contain some primary research articles that have been included in the reviews, but the main focus is systematic reviews).

Systematic reviews are an excellent source of high-quality evidence, and should use a clearly formulated question and systematic and explicit methods to identify, select, and critically appraise relevant research, and collect and analyse data from the studies that are included in the review.

While most of the systematic reviews included will be included in other sources such as Medline and EMBASE, they are not always easy to locate (though we have added some search filters to the Knowledge Navigator page to make this easier).

We've added Epistemonikos to the Systematic Review section of our Knowledge Navigator, where you'll find useful guidance and sources for locating many different types of evidence. Alternatively, why not simply ask us to conduct an evidence search for you?.

Changes to NHS.UK

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Work is being undertaken to improve nhs.uk in order to help people better manage their health and care online.

The ‘NHS Choices’ logo has been removed from the site, and content is being made easier for people to read and find, as well as more accessible on mobile phones.

It will simply reflect the trusted NHS brand, but the web address will remain the same: www.nhs.uk.

NHS organisations are being asked to replace existing references they have to ‘NHS Choices’ with ‘the NHS website’, and to replace or update their materials when reasonably possible and cost-effective. For example, if you have printed materials such as patient leaflets or booklets that mention NHS Choices, you should continue to use this stock until it has been depleted.

New E-learning Module on how to Search the Healthcare Databases

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Health librarians, in collaboration with Health Education England have produced a set of e-learning modules on how to search the literature effectively and have recently added a new module on how to search the healthcare databases using the NICE interface.

This builds on the earlier modules that look at the principles behind searching.

All of the modules are short (each taking no more than 20 minutes to complete) and may be ‘dipped into’ for reference, or completed to obtain a certificate. There are now seven modules suitable for novice searchers and those wishing to refresh their knowledge:

Building the foundations

Developing the skills

Applying the skills

You'll need an OpenAthens account to access the modules (and all the many other e-learning packages available on the e-LfH platform) and the first time you access e-LfH you'll need to enter some personal details.

Library staff can also provide training and assistance with searching techniques and searching specific resources, and we can also perform searches on your behalf.

New topics in KnowledgeShare Evidence Updates

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Keeping track of new evidence and publications can be difficult, but the library’s KnowledgeShare service can make it much easier.

KnowledgeShare has recently added additional categories that you can add to your profile to be alerted on:

  • Frailty
  • Skin Abnormalities
  • Endocrine Cancer
  • Mouth and Jaw Abnormalities
  • Osteonecrosis of the Jaw
  • Rickets
  • Medication Errors
  • Brexit
  • Intravenous Therapy
  • Animal Assisted Therapy

You can sign up for our KnowledgeShare service at and receive personalised updates of new information on these topics, or any others that you're interested in. Because the service is tailored to your interests, you're more likely to receive updates on only the things you really want to know about, so let us know everything you're interested in.

If you're already a subscriber, simply reply to your next alert email and let us know if you'd like to amend your preferences to add any of these new topics (or change anything else about your alert preferences).

Many of the resources used are freely available, so you'll be able to access them with one-click, and most of the remainder are available with an NHS OpenAthens account.

Updates are sent out fortnightly, so you won't be inundated with emails.

Serious fun with educational board games

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Did you know our libraries stock board games? These are educational board games (sorry, no Monopoly or Cluedo!) that can be used by teams to teach important concepts.

We have two already available - The Infection Control Game, and The Sepsis Game.

In addition, coming soon are…

  • The Drug Round Game
  • Game of Stools
  • The Nutrition Game
  • The Communication Game
  • The Hydration Game

These have been developed for use by healthcare staff, and have been used successfully at other Trusts. They can be borrowed to play in your departments, or we can help arrange a session in the Learning Centre or Education Centre (subject to room availability). Perhaps you could challenge another team to a game?

BMJ Case Reports: publishing, sharing and learning through experience

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BMJ Case Reports is a collection of over 15,000 case reports across all fields of medicine, and publishing a case report is a great way to share details of interesting cases on common and rare diseases.

Shrewsbury and Telford Health Libraries have a fellowship account on behalf of SaTH, and as well as allowing you to access the full-text of all the cases via an NHS OpenAthens account, you can also submit case reports for publication without having to pay publication fees. Case reports submitted for publication are peer-reviewed quickly, usually appearing in the journal within 25 days, and BMJ Case Reports is indexed in the Medline database.

Since the start of the year, 5 case reports by Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust staff have already been published.

If you want to submit a case report, our fellowship number is 915046 and instructions for authors can be found on the BMJ Case Reports website.

Keeping up to date with your professional interests

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Keeping track of new evidence and publications can be difficult, but the library’s KnowledgeShare service can make it much easier.

As well as clinical topics, KnowledgeShare also includes recent publications on topics such as:

  • Leadership
  • Education
  • Health care finance
  • Research methods
  • Change management
  • Human factors
  • Safeguarding
  • and much more!

Sign up for our KnowledgeShare service at and receive personalised updates of new information on topics you're interested in. Because the service is tailored to your interests, you're more likely to receive updates on only the things you really want to know about.

Many of the resources used are freely available, so you'll be able to access them with one-click, and most of the remainder are available with an NHS OpenAthens account.

Updates are sent out fortnightly, so you won't be inundated with emails.

Sources of bias in health research

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The Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford has developed a catalogue of sources of bias that may affect health care evidence, and may need to be taken into account when performing a critical appraisal on a published piece of research.

Just a few of the examples include:

Allocation bias

Systematic difference in how participants are assigned to treatment and comparison groups in a clinical trial.

Hot stuff bias

When a topic is fashionable (‘hot’)  investigators may be less critical in their approach to their research, and investigators and editors may not be able to resist the temptation to publish the results.

Positive results bias

The tendency to submit, accept and publish positive results rather than non-significant or negative results.

Volunteer bias

Participants volunteering to take part in a study intrinsically have different characteristics from the general population of interest.

For more information, including ways to reduce possible bias when carrying out research, visit the Catalogue of Bias.

E-learning modules on literature search skills available

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Health librarians, in collaboration with Health Education England have produced a set of e-learning modules on how to search the literature effectively.

These look at the principles behind searching, so the skills are applicable to any database you may use for searching the literature, including those in the OmniSearch article search, and the NICE advanced database (HDAS) search.

The modules are short (each taking no more than 20 minutes to complete) and may be ‘dipped into’ for reference, or completed to obtain a certificate. There are currently six modules suitable for novice searchers and those wishing to refresh their knowledge:

Building the foundations

Developing the skills

You'll need an OpenAthens account to access the modules (and all the many other e-learning packages available on the e-LfH platform) and the first time you access e-LfH you'll need to enter some personal details.

Library staff can also provide training and assistance with searching techniques and searching specific resources, and we can also perform searches on your behalf.