Utilizing the Newest Vital Sign (NVS) to Assess Health Literacy at a Regional Academic Medical Center's Family Medicine Clinic.

Researchers examined the correlation between the physician's subjective assessment of health literacy rates and actual health literacy rates among patients as determined by the Newest Vital Sign (NVS). A sample of n = 150 patients, 18 years of age or older, were verbally interviewed using NVS tool before seeing their physician. After the physician met with the patient, the physician was asked to measure that patient's level of health literacy on a Likert-type scale and a "yes/no" scale.

The significance of the library's physical space: how COVID-19 impacted a consumer health service.

Background: During the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many consumer health libraries were forced to close their doors to patrons. At the Health Information Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, the physical space closed, while health information services continued to be provided via phone and email. To examine the impact of lack of access to a physical library for consumer health information, researchers analyzed the number of health information requests pre-COVID-19 pandemic compared to during the initial phase of the pandemic.

Medical librarians and little free libraries: Connecting rural communities to health information.

Background: Consumer health libraries connect communities to reliable and accurate health information while Little Free Libraries (LFL) provide communities globally with access to free books with a 'take one leave one' type policy.

Objectives: To discuss how medical librarians used already established LFLs as outreach opportunities to provide consumer health books to rural locations in East Tennessee's Appalachia region in the United States.

Methods: Researchers reviewed the population's literacy levels, the Index of Medical Underservice scores, and the availability of established LFLs.

Determining COVID-19's impact on an academic medical library's literature search service.

Objective: At many institutions, literature search services are an important aspect of health science librarianship. This exploratory study analyzes how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the use of an academic hospital medical library's literature search service.

Methods: To evaluate the pandemic's impact on literature searching at The University of Tennessee Medical Center's Preston Medical Library, data were analyzed for changes from the year before the pandemic (March 1, 2019 to February 29, 2020) to the first year during the pandemic (March 1st, 2020 to February 28, 2021).

The status of scholarly efforts of librarians on health literacy: a bibliometric analysis.

Objective: In order to determine the status of scholarly efforts on health literacy by librarians, researchers examined the characteristics of health literacy publications authored by librarians from 2000 to 2020.

Methods: Bibliometric analysis was used to assess the indicators of productivity, affiliation, collaboration, and citation metrics of librarians in health literacy-related research. Data were collected using the Scopus database; articles were screened for inclusion before importation into Microsoft Excel for analysis.

Collaborative updating of an organizational health literacy tool confirms medical librarians' leadership roles.

Background: A librarian led task force at the University of Tennessee Medical Center sought to evaluate their medical centre's health literacy attributes utilizing a widely used tool. This research ultimately led to the update of the tool.

Objectives: To discuss the evaluation of health literacy attributes of health care organizations and detail the process of updating the Health Literacy Environment of Hospitals and Health Centers (HLEHHC) tool.

Mind like Water: Flexibly Adapting to Serve Patrons in the Era of COVID-19.

The ability to be flexible and adapt quickly to changing circumstances is a crucial skill for librarians to develop in a world increasingly characterized by rapid change. It can take a crisis to learn how effective librarians have become in developing the needed adaptive behaviors, including a willingness to change workstyles, experiment with new technologies and readily move on from failed experiments. In this paper, librarians from the Preston Medical Library at the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine, prompted by the crisis of COVID-19, present their response.

Confronting the opioid crisis with consumer health information: a look at East Tennessee.

Background: Starting in the 1990s, health care providers began prescribing opioids to patients as pain relievers, believing they were safe. However, many patients became addicted to these pills. In 2017, the US Department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency to fight the opioid epidemic.

Influence of library relocation and marketing: examining zip codes and health disparities to serve consumers in East Tennessee.

Background: In 2014, the Preston Medical Library underwent a radical change, moving from an academic office building to the main floor of a regional medical center. While the library had previously served the public, health information requests have substantially increased in volume due to the new location. Researchers analyzed request data to see if the service's reach has expanded to counties that previously had not used the service, to see which counties have requested the most health information, and to ascertain whether more requests are from counties with higher poverty rates.

Librarians Promoting Changes in the Health Care Delivery System through Systematic Assessment.

Patient engagement in health care decisions largely depends on a patient's health literacy and the health literacy attributes of the health care organization. Librarians have an established role in connecting patients with health information in the context of their care. However, librarians can play a larger role in helping to make changes in their organization's health literacy attributes.

Computerized versus hand-scored health literacy tools: a comparison of Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) and Flesch-Kincaid in printed patient education materials.

Objective: The research compared and contrasted hand-scoring and computerized methods of evaluating the grade level of patient education materials that are distributed at an academic medical center in east Tennessee and sought to determine if these materials adhered to the American Medical Association's (AMA's) recommended reading level of sixth grade.

Methods: Librarians at an academic medical center located in the heart of Appalachian Tennessee initiated the assessment of 150 of the most used printed patient education materials. Based on the Flesch-Kincaid (F-K) scoring rubric, 2 of the 150 documents were excluded from statistical comparisons due to the absence of text (images only).

Taking the Pulse of the University of Tennessee Medical Center's Health Literacy Knowledge.

Low health literacy is well documented in East Tennessee. Before addressing the issue, librarians at the Preston Medical Library, University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, conducted a needs assessment of hospital staff to determine their knowledge of health literacy and the need for training. As a follow-up, library staff conducted training sessions for nurses through classes, small group meetings, and staff huddles.