Delivering Internet health resources to an underserved health care profession: school nurses

Purpose: This paper reports on a course developed for school nurses. The course focused on locating reliable and high-quality medical information resources on the Internet. Setting/Participants/Resources: The Health Sciences Library System (HSLS) of the University of Pittsburgh formed a partnership with the Pennsylvania Association of School Nurses and Practitioners (PASNAP). Through this partnership, a hands-on course was offered at the PASNAP annual conference. Brief description: As one component of the Health Information for the Public Project, a subcontract of the National Library of Medicine, HSLS collaborated with PASNAP. This collaboration resulted in HSLS librariansʹ offering a course titled "Access to Electronic Health Information for School Nursesʹʹ at PASNAPʹs annual conference. This paper describes the school nurse population, their professional information needs, and the development of the course curriculum. Results/Outcome: This course provided participants with the skills to effectively utilize the Internet to locate high-quality medical information. Evaluation method: A course evaluation and impact survey were used to assess the effectiveness of the instruction.