Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
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THE ALL-IRELAND ELECTRONIC HEALTH LIBRARY (AIEHL)
Bradley, L
Ireland and Northern Ireland’s Population Health Observatory, The
Institute of Public Health in Ireland, 5 th Floor, Bishop’s Square,
Redmond’s Hill, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Good quality information and knowledge is essential to improve the
population’s health and decrease health inequalities. How to
manage such knowledge in an effective and efficient manner has
been the subject of much debate in both international and national
arenas and was identified as a major theme within the Review of
the Public Health Function in Northern Ireland and the Information
Strategy in the Republic of Ireland. One of the key elements
underpinning the management of public health knowledge is the
accessibility of key information to practitioners and decision makers.
In 2006 Ireland and Northern Ireland’s Population Health
Observatory (INIsPHO), at the Institute of Public Health in Ireland,
lead the development of an All-Ireland electronic Health Library
(AIeHL) with the aim of providing a rational approach to the
management of knowledge resources across the island of Ireland.
The Library consists of a network of interoperable websites. Each
member website contains a range of knowledge resources including
policy and strategy documents, data (quantitative and qualitative),
research reports, details of programmes and interventions, contacts
and websites. The AIeHL links these websites and makes it possible
to search all the resources held on its member websites via a single
search.
To make this approach possible the Library has promoted the use of
consistent metadata for classifying all resources including the use of
the National Public Health Language (NPHL) – a common public
health language which describes the subject of resources.
The initial pilot project for the Library made the following
repositories interoperable;
• Archive of Irish Health Publications (Health Services
Executive)
• Healthdata (Health Services Executive)
• INIsPHO (On-Line) Library (Institute of Public Health in
Ireland)
• National Documentation Centre on Drug Use (Health Research
Board)
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