GRATEFUL MED-LOANSOME DOC outreach project in central Pennsylvania

Abstract

The Geisinger Medical Center Library implemented a GRATEFUL MED outreach project in rural north-central Pennsylvania directed at providing physicians access to current medical literature. A total of 1,327 physicians affiliated with twenty-three hospitals practice in a thirteen-county area the size of the state of New Jersey. Of these hospitals, only four have hospital libraries, which vary in size and in staff abilities to meet the information needs of their affiliated physicians. The outreach project encompassed two stages--demonstrations of GRATEFUL MED and LOANSOME DOC at county medical society or hospital meetings, and installation and training in individual offices. The eighteen-month project ended in March 1992. Statistics were collected for the number of GRATEFUL MED software packages loaded (sixty-two), the number of document delivery items supplied by Geisinger Medical Center Library to project participants (367), and the number of physicians attending introductory demonstrations or follow-up training programs (455 at sixty-eight sessions). By the end of the project, 147 (32%) of those who had attended a seminar had access to GRATEFUL MED.