Single Search Environment to join up NHS Library Services across England

Added: (Mon Sep 13 2004)

Pressbox (Press Release) - Single Search Environment to join up NHS Library Services across England
For around 700,000 staff

The NHS has begun a project to deliver a single search environment that will integrate the ‘national’ and ‘local’ information resources of NHS library services across England. The single search environment will be one of the first outputs of the emerging National Library for Health; (www.library.nhs.uk) an NHS-wide initiative that is designed to deliver the goal of an integrated English health library.

The first phase of the single search environment will be launched in November 2004, as part of the Health Libraries Week, with further developments being made available from April 2005 onwards.

The single search environment will be powered by FDI’s ZPORTAL solution, which will integrate NHS resources alongside published data and deliver the resource search engine.

The single search environment is a national service that is the result of collaboration between NHS library services, National electronic Library for Health (NeLH) and the National Core Content Group. Ben Toth, Joint Director of NeLH explains, “The National electronic Library for Health is very pleased to have been involved in the procurement of a search engine for the NHS. Building on the successes of our current information projects will deliver benefits to information delivery across the NHS, in a cost effective way.”

The North West Health Care Libraries Unit has pioneered this new initiative as Colin Davies, Deputy Director of Health Libraries North West, and leader of the project team, outlines, “The North West, like a number of other regions in England, had recognised the need to join up the library collections and information resources within their areas and had begun projects to look at making this possible. The national single search environment solution will provide a framework that each area can use to join up its local resources, plus it will put our local resources in the same place as national resources provided by the NeLH and National Core Content programmes.”

The 500+ NHS Libraries in England will use the single search environment to improve information delivery to their clinical staff, including consultants, doctors and nurses – a user population of more than 680 000 clinicians and managers. Current usage figures for existing information services, that will become components of the single search environment, show usage levels already in excess of 300 000 regular users per year[1]. As a result the project team for the single search environment are predicting very high levels of usage for the new, integrated service.

The new information service will provide clinicians with one place to go to search popular resources such as BMJ’s Clinical Evidence, The Cochrane Library, Proquest full-text journals, and bibliographic databases from Dialog and EBSCO. Clinicians will access the new service using one, national website, and the system will display local resources that are relevant to where in England they are located. By incorporating the ability to localise the service each region, or NHS Library service, can select the services most appropriate for their audience and package the resources to suit the needs of their user community.

The single search environment is designed to integrate with existing NHS IT initiatives including the NHS National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT)[2]. The single search environment meets the technical requirements of NPfIT and will become integrated with NPfIT, as it is rolled-out.

The initial remit of the single search environment is to the needs of clinical staff, however the service is highly scaleable and incorporating the needs of students of the NHSU, whose target is largely non-clinical staff, is already a goal for the project team.

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Notes to editors
For further information contact:
Colin Davies, Deputy Director of Health Libraries North West
colindavies.nhs@nwda.co.uk

About Fretwell-Downing Informatics
Fretwell-Downing Informatics (FDI) has a long history of supplying leading-edge information management solutions to over 200 organisations worldwide. FDI operates from its headquarters in the UK with a US subsidiary, Fretwell-Downing Inc., in North America plus additional offices in Australia and Europe. FDI’s experience has resulted in a suite of well-designed solutions including information portals, library management, resource sharing, document delivery and data integration. The company’s freedom by design philosophy is underpinned by a strong software development team and a commitment to interoperability and open standards. This enables FDI components to be built into a total solution or integrated alongside existing technologies.
www.fdisolutions.com


For further information, contact:
Sarah Walton, Marketing Manager, FDI
sarah.walton@fdisolutions.com

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[1] Ten or more usages per year
[2] National Programme for Information Technology in the NHS in England