William F. Garrity

Some of my/the Dartmouth Biomedical Libraries' current, principal projects include the following (in no particular order):

Associate Director/Research and Education Services.  (See our organization chart.)  This position is recently vacant, and we're assessing our needs before deciding how to fill it.  At this point, I anticipate beginning recruitment in January/February 2008. 

Conflicts-of-interest.  The Dartmouth College Library system has heightened sensitivity to potential conflicts of interest in our dealings with business partners (publishers, systems vendors, book jobbers, etc.).  I'm leading a small group that is thinking about the issues and proposing guidelines.  We'll start our work in early calendar year 2008. 

The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.  Effective August 1, 2007, the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences split from the Medical School and was renamed the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice  (DIHPCP, or, more commonly, TDI).  I am collaborating with TDI's and DMS's leaderships to re-define support of library and information resources and services. 

Quality Literature Program.  An effort lead by TDI's Paul Batalden, MD (Pediatrics and Community and Family Medicine, and Director of Healthcare Improvement Leadership), Frank Davidoff, MD (Editor Emeritus of Annals of Internal Medicine), and David Stevens, MD (Vice President of the Association of American Medical Colleges and Editor-in-Chief of BMJ's Quality and Safety in Healthcare) seeks to change standards for quality improvement publication.  See this article.  The Dartmouth Biomedical Libraries are supporting the effort by reviewing draft publication guidelines and are developing a proposal for a regular "library column" in Quality and Safety in Healthcare about finding good evidence.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Information Systems Steering Committee.  I am a member of the Information Systems Steering Committee (ISSC) for Dartmouth-Hitchcock (D-H).  This committee reports to the D-H Board of Governors and sets direction, budget, priorities, resource allocation, and polices for and provides oversight of information systems at D-H.  The ISSC's current focus is replacing our home-grown clinical information system with a marketplace solution.  We're also cleaving ourselves into multiple sub-committees; I am leading the "email and user support" subcommittee, and am drafting our charge and membership. 

I'm developing a "mini-institutional repository" to support the committee and our work. 

The Dartmouth Summer Institute in Evidence-Based Mental Health.  2007's institute, our second annual, was August 9-11.  The course uses small-group sessions with hands-on, case-based training to introduce the evidence-based process using topics in various areas of mental health.  The audience is all mental health professionals, including residents, trainees, and training directors.  The institute's ultimate goal is for patients to benefit from the most effective services and care.

In 2006 and 2007, the institute's directors were Robert E. Drake, MD, PhD (Director, Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center), Matthew R. Merrens, PhD (Co-Director, Dartmouth Evidence-Based Practices Center), and myself.  Institute faculty have included Pamela Bagley, Heather Blunt, and Karen Odato, each a Research and Education Librarian in the Dartmouth Biomedical Libraries, and Cindy Stewart, Associate Director/Health Sciences for the Biomedical Libraries.  In 2008, Karen, Matt, and Steve Bartels, MD (Department of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School), will be institute directors, while Bob Drake, Alan I. Green, MD (Chair of Psychiatry), and myself will be institute sponsors.

In 2007, we also offered a fully-funded "librarian internship" as part of the institute, and will continue to do so in future institutes.  The goal here is to provide a (non-Dartmouth) librarian the opportunity to expand his or her evidence-based medicine instructional skills and knowledge.  After a competitive application process, in 2007 we selected Tagalie (Tag) Heister, MSLS, from the University of Kentucky Medical Center Library.  She is a medical librarian working directly in Kentucky's Department of Psychiatry.  Institute interns receive all instructional materials, participate in the small groups and exercises, assist institute faculty members, and socialize with the faculty and participants.

Also, Matt and I have agreed to coordinate writing about the institute) for submission to the journal Academic Psychiatry.

Institute in Evidence-Based Medicine for Librarians.  With some inspiration coming from our work with the Summer Institute in Evidence-Based Mental Health, we (the Biomedical Libraries) are developing an annual institute specifically focusing on the librarians' role in evidence-based healthcare.  We're working to offer the first institute in the summer of 2008. 

Science-in-Sight.  The to-be-constructed Life Sciences Building is planned to have a "virtual life sciences presence," likely via interactive, multi-media displays.  I'm facilitating the planning process. 

Vietnam.  In early March 2007, I went with a group of plastic and craniofacial surgeons, and "informaticists" from industry and university to consult with Hanoi-area hospitals about ICT and healthcare.  (The surgeons did clinics.)  We're going  back in March 2008. 

See this site (specifically, http://www.william-garrity.com/vietnam/) for more information, including a travel journal.

I'm getting around to writing a proposal for continuing future work, and will publish it here when it has been reviewed.

FY08.  We're tracking the year's progress, generally, and getting to know the new financial system (OASIS), in particular. 

Fundraising.  A director/chair/etc. should always have a list in his/her pocket of projects and priorities for development prospects.  I'm updating my list. 

NAHSL 2007.  This annual conference of New England medical librarians just concluded; Dartmouth and UVM co-organized it.  As conference co-chair and chair of sponsorship and of evaluation, I've got a boat-load of post-conference work to do--thank-you's, reports, etc.

Library space.  Any library's space should be continually assessed and re-engineered to meet the needs of its clients.  The Biomedical Libraries' Dana library needs particular attention. 

• Dana Library space:
• outline the next round of possible improvements. 
• We've recently combined the reference/information desk and the circulation desk.  Side-by-side research librarians and circulation staff works very well at the Matthews-Fuller Library; we've been keen to emulate the model at Dana.  We're currently using the existing circulation furniture; since it's inadequate, we'll be specing a better layout. 
• The arts program has been launched.
• Matthews-Fuller Library space: with Cindy Stewart, thinking about changes to that space.
• Define long-term needs for health and life sciences/sciences library space on the Hanover campus.

Evidence-based information and clinical information systems.  All of Paul Batalden, Joe O'Donnell, MD (Medicine and Senior Advising Dean, DMS), Joe Rosen, MD (Surgery), Andy Gettinger, MD (Anesthesiology and Medical Director for IS, DHMC), and we in the Biomedical Libraries know about the need to better and more seamlessly integrate information to the point of practice, to the point of care, and in patient information.  Paul has the context of improving clinical microsystems; Joe Rosen, putting information--likely via "smart phones"--in the hands of physicians in developing nations (see the Vietnam project); Joe O'Donnell and IS, making the medical record better; and Andy, enhancing the utility and value of DHMC's clinical information systems.

These are big, audacious projects.  Many people, at multiple institutions, are wrestling with the challenges.  (See this report from the American Medical Informatics Association.)  At Dartmouth, the Biomedical Libraries and IS are modeling a possible project.

The problem is obvious: Dartmouth has a great clinical information system (CIS), and rich Biomedical Libraries, but the two don't talk to each other in a coordinated fashion.  We make clinicians work in parallel, but separate, systems, with the result that the full promise of both CIS and the Libraries aren't achieved.

DHMC is doing a major, strategic review of its information systems.  (See above, regarding the D-H ISSC.)  There's opportunity to add value to our locally developed CIS or a potential vended successor clinical information system.  Integrating the Libraries and CIS would add that value--and certainly further the Libraries' mission, as well.

Right now, we're focused on discovering

• which information resources may be linkable to CIS, and
• what may be happening at other medical centers.  (The current sense: not much. I'll report here and elsewhere on findings.)

Medical Informatics.  I'm working with Andy Gettinger and Jason Moore, PhD (Director of the Bioinformatics Shared Resource in DHMC's Norris Cotton Cancer Center, and Associate Professor of Genetics and of Community and Family Medicine), to heighten Dartmouth's awareness of the utility of an institutional medical informatics program.  Our first effort will likely be a speaker series. 

DMS and Tuck.   Many universities are fostering, or would like to foster, heightened collaboration between their schools of business and medicine.  Dartmouth itself sees synergy between DMS and the Tuck School of Business, and the Biomedical Libraries and Feldberg are ramping up our collaboration to support joint programs.  Right now, we're in the midst of assessing what is going on at other universities.  I'll report here and elsewhere on findings.

AAHLS's Future Leadership Task Force.  I'm responsible for the "workforce trends" effort, which seeks to quantify and characterize impending director retirements and recent director recruitments.  We've done a survey, and I'm parsing the data. I'll report here and elsewhere.

October Conferences.  I made a commitment to write about it for the literature--to spread the word about what we're doing.