HealthSeek offers ‘knowledge management’
Eskind Biomedical Library now offers a different kind of service – knowledge management support.
HealthSeek®, a non-profit fee-based outreach service, is a health science information service providing information and knowledge management tools to support decision-making in health care business, clinical medicine, and legal medicine.
The Annette and Irwin Eskind Biomedical Library has a strong tradition of serving the Vanderbilt community with a research-level collection of resources and services. HealthSeek was created to extend information services to individuals and organizations outside Vanderbilt for a reasonable fee.
The HealthSeek staff will research a subject matter and present a research packet containing selected full-text and filtered documents with a bibliography of the search results.
“Information is perceived to be very cheap thanks to the Web,” said HealthSeek coordinator Patricia Lee. “With so many free Internet sites, it is tough to compete. But we offer something unique tailored information to support an organization’s knowledge management.”
HealthSeek can help define the knowledge needs of an organization through a needs assessment and design information strategies to help accomplish objectives. The staff can train an organization’s research staff to locate and use both print and electronic resources more effectively.
Corporate memberships are available for the information service. Benefits of a HealthSeek corporate membership include: reduced hourly research rates; checkout privileges at Eskind; quick desktop electronic delivery; 30 free reference questions monthly; Internet and computer training discounts; complimentary cost estimates for special projects; and direct phone, fax and e-mail access to research staff.
“HealthSeek serves as the main resource library for our office. We can review past issues of journals and copies of studies on line or in hard copy,” said Donna Finney, chief operating officer of the Centre for Health Care Planning. “Many of these publications are very expensive, and by using Healthseek, we eliminate the cost of buying, organizing and storing them.
“We’ve also found the staff at Healthseek very helpful. They do searches for us and get copies of information we need from other university libraries or government resources.” Centre is a Nashville-based health care consulting firm that does market and space needs analysis and planning for health care facilities
HealthSeek also offers community small group or individual instruction in the library or on-site locations. Customized workshops are available in information retrieval.
Clients from all over the United States currently using the service include physicians, medical consulting firms, lawyers, insurance companies, and state and local government agencies.
For more information, contact Lee at 615-936-1380 or visit the Web site at www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/Healthseek.