Mid-Missouri Area Health Education Center (Mid-MO AHEC) and its project partners have created a comprehensive digital library with services for community preceptors, health professions students and health care providers of the Missouri AHEC system (MAHEC). It is the mission of the Missouri AHEC to recruit new and retain existing primary health care providers in the rural and underserved communities of Missouri, and providing access to quality evidence based clinical resources is key to achieving our mission. We would like to expand the Digital Library to provide library resources and services for preceptors and students of three additional AHEC Centers, Northwest Missouri (NWMO AHEC), Southwest Missouri (SWMO AHEC) and Southeast Missouri (SEMO AHEC) and to additional sites in the Mid-MO AHEC region. This expansion will provide library services and resources to all of the rural areas in Missouri serviced by MAHEC. The objectives of the """"""""Expanding MAHEC Digital Library"""""""" project have these specific aims. 1. To expand the MAHEC Digital Library with access to NLM databases and evidence-based medicine (EBM) resources for AHEC preceptors into west central, northwest and southeast Missouri regions with the purpose of impacting patient care decision-making and providing support for teaching of medical and nursing students in the preceptors' practices. 2. To support the incorporation of evidence based medicine into these preceptors practice sites by providing them with continuing education, training and resources to encourage EBM application in their patient care. 3. To evaluate EBM database resources and use AHEC preceptors to determine which of these resources are effective in providing information to be used in patient care decision-making.
