Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts

Thursday, December 01, 2011

Shutdowns, Legacies, and Parks: Newly Acquired MN State Government Reports, Dec 2011

A sampling from the list of newly acquired MN state government reports, Dec 2011. 

State Government Shutdown Executive Summary
from Minnesota Management and Budget
     The causes, procedures, and results.

David W. Eby, PhD, Jonathon M. Vivoda, MPH
     "The purpose of the present study was to continue tracking the statewide hand-held cellular phone use rate of drivers in Minnesota in order to better understand the exposure to this distracting activity."

from MN Depts. of Public Safety and Transportation
     How much federal money is MN spending on repeat offender DWI reduction, and where does it go?

The Legacy Amendment: Evaluation Report
from the MN Office of the Legislative Auditor, Program Evaluation Division
     "In this early, general assessment of how the Legacy Amendment has been implemented, we identified the following four “ongoing concerns” facing the Legislature and the state agencies that administer the Legacy funds: (1) complying with the constitutional requirement that Legacy money be used to supplement, and not substitute for, “traditional” sources of funding; (2) finding a workable approach to limiting the use of Legacy money for administrative costs; (3) ensuring that conflict of interest concerns are adequately addressed; and (4) ensuring that the use of Legacy money will achieve the outcomes intended by the Legacy Amendment. We make various recommendations to help address these concerns."

Health Care Facility and Provider Database 
from the MN Dept. of Health
      "This database offers addresses, phone numbers, administrator names and state registration or licensure status for Minnesota health care providers. Federal certification classifications are also included. Provider types in the directory are boarding care homes, home health agencies, home care providers, hospices, hospitals, housing with services, nursing homes and supervised living facilities and other non-long term care providers. Providers can be selected by type, county, city or name."

MinnesotaCare:  An Overview
MinnesotaCare
both from the Research Dept., MN House of Representatives
     Brief and in-depth reports on MinnesotaCare.

Survey of State Estate, Inheritance, and Gift Taxes
from the Research Dept., MN House of Representatives
     "This information brief provides basic background information on the details of
state estate, inheritance, and gift taxes. The District of Columbia and 22 states,
including Minnesota, impose these taxes. Of these, 14 states, including
Minnesota, and D.C. impose estate taxes, six states impose inheritance taxes, and
two states impose both estate and inheritance taxes. Two states (one with an
estate tax and one with an inheritance tax) also impose gift taxes."

Minnesota State Parks and Trails: Directions for the Future:  Connecting People to Minnesota’s Great Outdoors
from Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Division of Parks and Trails
     "The Legacy Amendment mandate presents an opportunity to develop the division’s direction over the next ten years, establishing priorities and broader strategies to protect and manage the resource base, develop and maintain recreational facilities, and better serve existing customers and reach out to new ones." 

MN Zoo:  2011 Report to the Community
from the MN Zoo

Enjoy!
Melissa@Central.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

HEATH AND MEDICAL RESOURCES IN ELM




This webinar focused on the five new health databases available from ELM. Health Source: Consumer Edition and Alt Health Watch are designed for the general public. Health Source includes full-text of popular health periodicals like Prevention and Men's Health, pamphlets, reference books, and Merriam-Webster's Medical Desk Dictionary. Also, the Lexi-Pal Drug Guide, which contains information such as side-effects and contraindications for generic and brand name drugs, including over-the counter. Alt Health Watch is a database of academic and popular periodicals and reports on complementary and alternative medicine.


The Consumer Health Complete database combines the previous two databases to make a good starting point for the patron. In addition, it offers 2000 medical images and 800 videos. Its evidence-based reports are 2-page overviews of health topics which are fact-heavy and easily digestible. Medical terms are hyperlinked to the medical dictionary. The Blausen Human Atlas offers animations of human anatomy. For the most part, these databases offer the usual EBSCO options for saving, emailing, and printing entries. The two exceptions are the medical images, which can only be saved by right-clicking on them with the mouse, and the videos and animations, which cannot be saved, but can be accessed later by copying the permalink.


The other two databases, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition and Medline, are geared to an academic/professional audience. Medline has citations and abstracts only, not full-text.