NATIONAL INFORMATION CENTER ON HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH
AND HEALTH CARE TECHNOLOGY (NICHSR)
Background
The National Information Center on Health Services Research and
Health Care Technology (NICHSR) was created at the
National Library of Medicine
by the 1993 NIH Revitalization Act to improve
"...the collection, storage, analysis, retrieval, and dissemination of
information on health services research, clinical practice
guidelines, and on health care technology,
including the assessment of such technology."
Products and Services
NICHSR coordinates the development of new information products and
services related to health services research.
HSTAR (Health Services/Technology Assessment Research)
A bibliographic database containing records from MEDLINE®,
HEALTH, CATLINE®,
plus additional citations not appearing in any other MEDLARS® databases,
became available in 1994.
HSTAR includes citations to journal articles,
technical and government reports, books, book chapters,
and meeting abstracts.
It is an excellent source of
information on the development and use of clinical practice guidelines,
health technology assessment, and health services research methods.
HSRProj (Health Services Research Projects in Progress)
A database of citations to research-in-progress funded by
federal and foundation grants and contracts,
HSRProj builds upon a database developed in prototype by staff of
the Foundation for Health Services Research and the Cecil Sheps
Center at the University of North Carolina with funding from the
Pew Charitable Trusts.
It provides access to information about research
in progress before results are available in published form.
HSTAT (Health Services/Technology Assessment Texts)
A full-text free electronic resource for clinical practice guidelines
including those supported by AHCPR became available in 1994.
Developed by
NLM's Lister Hill
Center, the system allows those interested in clinical practice
guidelines to search for and read them on the computer screens in
their offices via modem or the Internet.
Access via the Internet also
allows printing and downloading.
DIRLINE (Directory of Information
Resources onLINE)
An NLM database of organizations,
DIRLINE has a special subfile covering health services research organizations
including those involved in technology assessment and the development of
practice guidelines.
Grateful Med
A personal computer interface developed by NLM,
Grateful Med,
is being used to make HSR searching even easier
through the development of tailored HSR search screens.
Internet Grateful Med (IGM) is a new NLM system for providing access to
MEDLARS via the Internet and the World-Wide Web.
The Internet Grateful Med prototype for assisted
searching in MEDLINE has been alpha-tested inside NLM
and currently is being beta tested by outside users.
Publications/Guides
A bibliography on telemedicine research entitled
Telemedicine:
Past, Present, Future
is now available.
It covers the period January 1966 through March 1995
and contains 1634 citations.
For further information concerning NLM's
telemedicine initiatives, refer to the
National Library of Medicine Telemedicine Activities fact sheet.
Other guides, fact sheets,
bibliographies, and products targeted to health services researchers
are available from
NLM's publications server
and the
NLM Gopher.
Outreach and Training
NICHSR collaborates with other NLM components and with members of
the National Network of Libraries of
Medicine® (NN/LM®) to exhibit
NLM products and services and to present specially focused training
classes at national meetings of HSR-related organizations.
Research and Development
NICHSR participates in the development of the
Unified Medical Language System®
and
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH®).
The
NLM Extramural Program
coordinates the distribution of grants and contracts many in
health services research.
The Federal
High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC)
Program funds many grants of interest to the HSR community.
Staff
Ione Auston, Librarian, email: auston@lhc.nlm.nih.gov
Marj Cahn, Special Expert, email: cahn@nlm.nih.gov
Betsy Humphreys, Assistant Director Health Services Research Information,
email: BLH@nlm.nih.gov
Marlyn Schepartz, Library Technician,
email: marlyn_schepartz@occshost.nlm.nih.gov
Catherine Roos Selden, Librarian,
email: selden@nlm.nih.gov
For more information on NICHSR, contact:
National Information Center on Health Services
Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR)
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Building 38, Mail Stop 20
Bethesda, MD 20894
(301)496-0176 (Voice)
1-800-272-4787 (Select 1,6,3,2) (Voice)
(301)402-3193 (FAX)
nichsr@nlm.nih.gov
