Tri-County Hospital, a 49 bed, 501 c (3) facility in Wadena, Minnesota will work with 5 other participating facilities over a 2-year period to implement the project titled, """"""""Wadena Minnesota Healthcare Digital Library Access"""""""". The 6 participating facilities in the proposed project are all located in Health Professional Shortage Areas. The Wadena, MN service area of 25,000 people is located in Ottertail, Todd and Wadena Counties. Wadena County is ranked as the 4 th and Todd as the 6 th poorest county in the State of Minnesota in 2002. The request to the National Library of Medicine of $85,000 would defray substantial training costs and establish healthcare digital library access with the University of Minnesota Bio-Medica] Library. The goal of the project is to enhance access to digital clinical information through training for rural physicians, mid-level providers, nurses, healthcare professionals and consumers. The project will meet the following objectives: 1) experienced medical science librarians will conduct Intemet and NLM database search training onsite to healthcare providers and professionals; 2) implement NLM databases; 3) develop University of Minnesota Biomedical Library relationship for electronic access to Inter-Library loan and resource support; 4) customize websites for ease of use; 5) set-up 10 consumer computer stations with customized websites; 6) establish a mentor program of Internet super-users to serve as ongoing, onsite resources; 7) provide evaluation of learning and practice changes with the use of digital information.
