Every year, the Patient Education Team identifies patient pamphlets that have not been reviewed or updated within 5 years of the last review date. We then contact content creators to confirm whether these pamphlets need to be updated or removed from circulation.
This year, any pamphlets published in 2018 or before must be reviewed and updated or they will be removed from circulation on April 1, 2024. The full list of items that must be reviewed and updated before April 1, 2024 can be found in the Patient Pamphlets to Archive 2024 spreadsheet.
As you know, changes to drug names, clinic or department contact information, and clinical practice are common. Patient pamphlets must be reviewed by the teams that created them, and/or the teams that use them, to ensure that such changes are reflected in the materials we provide to patients and their families.
Library Services' Patient Education Team is available to support Nova Scotia Health staff in updating any existing pamphlets. Pamphlets published in 2018 or before that have not been reviewed and updated by April 1, 2024 will be archived and removed from the patient education resources collection.
What do you need to do?
- Check the list of titles that are due for review.
- Complete the Archiving Project form to let us know you intend to update a pamphlet before the April 1, 2024 deadline.
- Complete the Archiving Project form to recommend a pamphlet for archiving.
- Share this information with your colleagues who are involved in patient education pamphlets in your area, department, unit, or clinic.
How can the Patient Education Team help?
We can send you the latest version of the pamphlet as a Word document, so you can edit it easily. We facilitate the review and update process for you, including:
- Integrating your team’s edits and feedback
- Reviewing for plain language and readability
- Coordinating adaptation and reprint copyright permission requests
- Ensuring improved accessibility and consistent messaging in line with other Nova Scotia Health materials
- Updating layout and branding
Get started on your pamphlet review project by completing the Archiving Project form to connect with the Patient Education Team.
For guidance and resources on how to update a pamphlet, refer to the Patient Pamphlets section of the Library’s Content Creator Toolkit. Questions? Reach out to the Patient Education Team at Pamphlets@nshealth.ca.
Kallen Rutledge
Librarian Educator, Patient Education Pamphlets Lead
Nova Scotia Hospital, Central Zone
PubMed® recently added a new proximity searching tool to help you create better searches. The tool allows you to search for multiple terms within a specified distance of each other, such as one or more words apart, in any order. This can only be done with the title and the abstract fields. This tool can already be found in other databases, such as CINAHL®.
How to use Proximity Searching in PubMed®
Proximity searching uses the following format:
“search terms”[field:~N]
“search terms” are the words you want to search for.
For example:
Instead of: “ICU nurs*”[title:~1]
Use: “ICU nurse”[title:~1] OR “ICU nurses”[title:~1]
field specifies where within an article you want the proximity search to be done.
For example: “neoplasm[tiab]”.
~N specifies the maximum number of words apart you want the search terms to appear.
Proximity Search Example
To search for articles that contain the terms ‘staffing’ and ‘model’ within at most two words of each other and within the title or abstract, the search query is:
"staffing model" [tiab:~2]
Here are some of the results from that search query:
In the titles, you will see that the words ‘staffing’ and ‘model’ appear adjacent in one result, and two words apart in the other result.
In the abstract snippets, you will notice that the words don’t appear next to each other. This is because PubMed® highlights all words that match the search terms in the search results, regardless of the query parameters.
Check out this video for more information on how to use PubMed®’s Proximity Search: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/oet/ed/pubmed/quicktours/proximity/index.html
If you have questions about PubMed®’s Proximity Search, or about database searches in general, book a one-on-one consultation with a Library Services team member, or reach out to us with your questions at AskLibrary@nshealth.ca.
Vinson Li
Librarian Educator
Yarmouth Regional Hospital, Western Zone
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