A Survey of Biomedical Informatics:

The Woods Hole Experience

Kelli HamConsumer Health and Technology Coordinator

What is Woods Hole?

• Small fishing village• Located on Cape Cod• In Falmouth, MA, 80

miles south of Boston• Home to world-

renowned research institutions, such as the Marine Biological Lab (MBL)

What is “Woods Hole”?

• Biomedical informatics survey course• 30 fellows accepted each session – medical

librarians, clinicians, researchers, professionals• Funded by the National Library of Medicine, hosted

by the Marine Biological Laboratory• Twenty sessions plus three evening workshops• Taught by experts in the field• Great professional development opportunity• Legendary!

The ScheduleEach day was packed full! We did have a few lunch time tours and other opportunities.

Thomas Hunt Morgan - Nobel Prize in Medicine 1933The family of T.H. Morgan donated his Nobel diploma to the Marine Biological Lab, where it is on display in the Rare Books Room at the Lillie Library. http://www.mbl.edu/blog/morgan-nobel-prize/

Gingerbread House on Martha’s VineyardBy Wednesday, everyone was ready for a break. Classes ended at 2:30, so many of us hopped on the ferry for an excursion to Martha’s Vineyard.

Relevance and Discovery

• Some sessions were directly relevant – Consumer Health Informatics & Social Media– Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records– Telehealth and Mobile Devices– Disaster and Information Management

• Other topics -> discovery, new knowledge– Mathematical modeling– Genetics/Genomics and Informatics– Semantic MEDLINE

A Few Take-Aways• e-Health Literacy– “the ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise health

information from electronic sources and apply the knowledge gained to addressing or solving a health problem.”

Norman CD, Skinner HA. eHEALS: The eHealth Literacy Scale. J Med Internet Res 2006 Nov 14;8(4):e27

• The Quantified Self– Using technology to gather data on daily life over time

either from user input or sensors, then analyzing, using results to make decisions and change behavior

Future Plans

• Activities to promote MedlinePlus Connect• Develop outreach and training plan for first

responders and disaster preparedness• Consider ‘the quantified self’ and trends in

consumer health information needs– What does it mean for the future of health care?– What to do with the data?– Implications for design of EHRs and PHRs?– Risks and challenges

Should You Attend?• Applications include a Statement of Goals,

Summary of Research Experience, Statement of Expectations and your CV

• Spring and Fall sessions (usually)

• 40 hours of MLA CE with full attendance

• Travel costs are reimbursed later

• Talk to someone who has attended

• Prepare for a wonderful experience

Parting Thoughts

Thank You!

Kelli HamNN/LM Pacific Southwest Region

kkham@library.ucla.edu

This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine, under Contract No. N01 LM 6 3507 with the ‐ ‐ ‐UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library.