Author: Jason Curtis

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.

UpToDate as a source of teaching images

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Are you looking for high-quality images for use in teaching? SaTH's subscription to UpToDate includes over 33,000 pictures, tables, illustrations, diagrams, graphs, algorithms, and videos to help you discuss and answer clinical questions with your colleagues and patients. Additionally, these graphics are easily exported to use in PowerPoint presentations for training purposes.

To locate graphics, you can do a topic search as usual and then select 'Graphic' to filter your search to graphics only.

The resulting graphics appear in thumbnail format; clicking on a thumbnail opens a larger version of the graphic and also provides a link to export to PowerPoint.

You can also view any graphic from within a topic by clicking the links to the images from the topic content list.

All the images in UpToDate are licensed for use in teaching within the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.

UpToDate clinical decision support tool

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To help towards Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust's goal of providing the safest, kindest care in the NHS, the Library, with the support of the Postgraduate and Undergraduate Education teams has started a subscription to the UpToDate clinical decision support resource.

UpToDate is written by clinicians for clinicians and offers easy access to high-quality information to inform diagnosis and treatment decisions. It has a proven positive impact on outcomes, and is associated with reduced cost of care, shorter length of stay, reduced complication rates and increased patient safety.

In an international subscriber survey carried out in 2014, 94% of respondents said UpToDate improved the quality of care they provide.

A recent survey of senior clinicians in SaTH gave examples of where using UpToDate has changed practice and was especially useful in rare or unusual conditions. It is also an excellent teaching resource, offers a drug interaction checker, can record usage for CPD points, and also offers hundreds of patient information leaflets.

UpToDate can be accessed on any PC in SaTH by visiting the UpToDate website. For off-site use, you can either create a username and password (useful if you want to record usage for CPD) or use your OpenAthens account. There is also a mobile app you can download for access anywhere.

For more information on accessing UpToDate off-site or by mobile app, visit the UpToDate page on our website.

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.

Have you signed up for KnowledgeShare yet?

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Why not make part of your committment to your continuing professional development to keep up to date with new healthcare knowledge?

One way of doing this is to sign up for our new KnowledgeShare Evidence Updates service 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, and all the sources used are high-level evidence such as Cochrane Reviews or NICE Guidance.

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!

Sign up for KnowledgeShare Evidence Updates

 

Reminiscence boxes for people with dementia

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We have Reminiscence Boxes available in both libraries to help support people with dementia. The boxes contain items to provoke memories and discussion, and can be borrowed by library members for use in hospital or in the community.

The boxes are themed, and at Shrewsbury we have one that covers household items (including kitchen items, a ration book, coin packs etc.), while the other contains childhood games. At Telford we have a box that covers seaside and holiday memories, and another that covers gardening.

All boxes contain copies of ‘Picture books to share’ that tie in with the box’s theme, and these books are specially designed for use with people with dementia, with large colourful pictures and photographs along with some accompanying text.

The boxes can be borrowed for up to 28 days at a time, and renewed if no-one is waiting for them.

We hope you’ll find the boxes useful, and we’re keen to see them used as much as possible. We welcome feedback on the contents, and plan to develop them over time in response to feedback about items work better.