Need information to guide decisions about your health or the health of a family member or friend? Are you looking for health services or facilities in your community? Do you need to find a support group in your area? The McGoogan Library of Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center provides such information to every Nebraska resident free of charge through the Consumer Health Information Resource Service (CHIRS)
[ http://www.unmc.edu/library/consumer ].
If you have questions like these, you can visit your local public library, or you can directly call or email the expert medical librarians at the McGoogan Library, and they will search and evaluate medical information sources to locate the answers for you. The search results, made up of health professional and consumer journal articles, book chapters, pamphlets, and web resources, are combined into a tailored package of information that is delivered to you via email or regular mail at no charge.
The McGoogan Library has provided this service to Nebraskans directly and through cooperative efforts with the Nebraska public libraries since 1984. This personalized service is unique to Nebraska, and offers valuable information support to anyone with a health question.
The materials provided by the medical librarians are intended for informative purposes only, and should be discussed with your healthcare provider – only a health care provider can interpret and individualize the information for an individual’s condition and specific situation.
In 2006, the McGoogan librarians created a web directory of health information specific to Nebraska: Go Local Nebraska [ http://medlineplus.gov/nebraska ]. They work hard to keep it up to date and well maintained, making sure that it includes information that Nebraskans need for their healthcare decisions.
The Go Local Nebraska directory includes Web sites, contact information, and service descriptions for hospitals, physicians, nursing homes, support groups, and many other health resources listed by Nebraska cities and counties.
The Go Local Nebraska initiative is part of a nationwide movement to create directories for each state – learn more about other states’ Go Local efforts at MedlinePlus, the premier health information site created and maintained by the National Library of Medicine [http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/golocal/index.html ].
CHIRS and Go Local Nebraska link Nebraskans to quality health information and services in their area. These services are a cooperative initiative among the National Library of Medicine (NLM), part of the National Institutes of Health; the McGoogan Library of Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center; the Nebraska Library Commission; and Nebraska’s public libraries. For more information, you can visit your local public library, or contact the McGoogan Library of medicine directly: in Omaha, 559-6221, outside Omaha toll-free at 1-866-800-5209 or via e-mail at askus@unmc.edu.
UNMC is the only public health science center in the state. Its educational programs are responsible for training more health professionals practicing in Nebraska than any other institution. Through their commitment to education, research, patient care and outreach, UNMC and its hospital partner, The Nebraska Medical Center, have established themselves as one of the country’s leading centers in cancer, transplantation biology, bioterrorism preparedness, neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases, genetics, biomedical technology and ophthalmology. UNMC’s research funding from external sources now exceeds $82 million annually and has resulted in the creation of more than 2,400 highly skilled jobs in the state. UNMC’s physician practice group, UNMC Physicians, includes 513 physicians in 50 specialties and subspecialties who practice primarily in The Nebraska Medical Center. For more information, go to UNMC’s Web site at www.unmc.edu.
News releases are archived on the UNMC Web site at:
https://app1.unmc.edu/publicaffairs/newsarchive/releases.cfm
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