Health Libraries Group Conference 2002
Health Information United: Aiming for the Same Goal and Playing for the Winning Team
Date: July 14 – 17 2002
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Conference Abstracts

• Monday 15th July

Gray, L. (OMNI), Rosen, N. (NHS Information Authority), Ward, R. (Department of Acute & Critical Care Nursing, University of Sheffield), Scrivener, R. (Quality Improvement programme, Royal College of Nursing Institute)

lg@biome.ac.uk

Breaking down barriers: a collaboration in developing an Internet gateway for nursing, midwifery and allied health

 

NMAP (http://nmap.ac.uk) is a gateway providing free access to quality Internet resources in health and medicine. It builds on the original OMNI project which began in 1994. It was established via a joint initiative between the Universities of Nottingham and Sheffield, and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), in collaboration with the key nursing, midwifery and allied health professional bodies. The service aims to overcome organisational barriers to serve the shared needs of NHS staff, HE & FE students, teachers, researchers and members of the professional bodies.

This paper discusses the development of this service, and describes the cross-sectoral partnerships that are involved.

NMAP was launched in April 2001, with 500 described and evaluated resources. These records emanated from two core collections, the highly successful site for nurses set up by Rod Ward, Lecturer in Nursing Informatics at Sheffield University; and the Royal College of Nursing database of nursing resources.

During the same period, a parallel initiative was under development by the NHS Information Authority. The National electronic Library for Health (http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/) was working with NHS Libraries to develop a digital library for NHS staff, patients and the public. Their role is to provide health care professionals with the knowledge and know-how to support health care related decisions. They were discussing the possibility of developing a 'Professional Portal' for the nursing, midwifery and allied health communities.

Consequently, NMAP and the Professional Portals worked together, aiming to develop a service that was greater than the sum of the parts. The NHS Information Authority contributes towards NMAP funding, which enables NMAP to incorporate the needs of a wider range of professional groups. In addition, NMAP is searchable from the Professional Portal sites within the NeLH. Both services are working towards a shared vision of seamless access to the provision of quality information.

This collaboration has highlighted some of the difficulties often encountered during cross-sectoral partnerships; communication is key, and has been achieved by regular face-to-face meetings backed up by frequent email communication. Other challenges faced have included intellectual property rights (IPR) issues, and working with different financial years and funding cycles.

Organisational barriers can be overcome; motivated individuals across the sectors have worked together as part of this innovative partnership to bridge the divide. This has resulted in complementary services that have built on their individual strengths to provide the nursing, midwifery and allied health communities with access to the quality information they need.

 

Presentation Slides
(.ppt file, 985MB)