Vickie Orton

Biography

Vickie is currently part of the information team for the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York.  Her role includes literature searching for systematic reviews, researching information for Hitting the Headlines and delivering training.  Prior to this post Vickie was Library Projects Co-ordinator at the Royal College of Nursing where she helped develop a number of learning resource centres for nurses.  Before working in the field of health Vickie worked in a number of public library authorities.

Abstract - Hitting the Headlines: a behind the scenes guide

Health stories are news stories.   Most days, newspapers carry reports about health care, including stories of effectiveness of new diagnoses or treatments. Such stories can create expectations or anxieties in patients and pressure for health professionals.   It is important, therefore, to know the facts behind the headlines. Information professionals often offer press cuttings services to their clients. This workshop offers information professionals insights into providing added value to press cuttings services by providing access to the research behind the headlines.

The aim of the Hitting the Headlines service is to provide busy health professionals, particularly those in primary care, with a rapid and reliable analysis of the evidence behind selected news reports.   Staff at the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) have been commissioned by the National electronic Library for Health (NeLH) to locate and systematically examine the research behind the headlines.

Unbiased, brief and readable summaries appraising the research evidence are posted on the NeLH web site http://www.nelh.nhs.uk within 48 hours of publication.   The timescale is intended to coincide with patient attendance in their GP's surgery.   For the benefit of professionals who want more information, resources such as the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects are searched for reviews on the topic in question and the references listed, as direct links wherever possible, together with any other relevant consumer links.  

Our interactive workshop session will guide participants through the process of identifying news stories based on research, obtaining the research evidence and tools to assess research quality.   The process will be illustrated with examples of news stories and their related research articles.

At the end of the session participants should be able to identify appropriate stories for appraisal, know techniques for gathering the research evidence, knowabout databases providing access to systematic reviews, and know how to locate critical appraisal tools.

This page was last updated on: 7 June, 2004