Wyoming Health Scout

1. Wyoming Health Scout Go Local Project

2. Wyoming has been called a small town…..

3. …with very long streets

4. Just a few demographics about Wyoming • One university, seven community colleges • Largest town is Cheyenne with just over 50,000 people • 23 Counties • Geographically, the 9th Largest State • Square Miles : 97,914 • 5.1 people per square mile • 2000 Census: 493,782 people

5. 2001 Agriculture Census: 757,212 cattle

6. Over 200 towns with populations under 500

7. Many of these small communities have medical clinics

8. 25 hospitals 11 DOCLINE Libraries Smallest hospital – 6 beds Largest hospital – 205 beds Smallest hospice – 1 bed 8 oncologists 13 cardiologists 57 OBGYNs Reality of Healthcare in Wyoming

9. Medical facilities are conveniently located for those accident-prone cowboy types

10. Or so we thought…. This was going to be as easy as watching the sunrise

11. First Step: The Go Local Team • Collaboration between: • Center for Rural Health Research and Education (CRHRE) • University of Wyoming Libraries, Medical Reference Librarian

12. Initial Steps • The proposal was written and submitted to the RML, which was approved after one revision • Training at NLM in May 2004 • Decision was made to use the Go Local program, rather than create our own database and link to Go Local

13. Advisory Board • Selected individuals were asked to serve as advisors to assist the team in choosing criteria for inclusion in the Go Local Project. • The criteria was based on Go Local suggested guidelines. • The Board met once, then corresponded via email.

14. Wyoming Health Scout • We selected a name for the project • A logo was designed • The Project Coordinator / Webmaster created a web site: http://www.health.uwyo.edu/GoLocal/

22. We began to collect information on health services in Wyoming • We created a brochure to promote participation • The brochure was given out at state health association meetings • It was also given to key people in hospitals • In kind, brochures from hospital services and at association meetings were collected

23. More information gathering • We found two print directories: • Wyoming Diabetes Association Directory of Services, which was a goldmine of services in the small communities • Wyoming Licensed and/or Certified Health Care Facilities

24. We were ready to begin applying the guidelines and entering the data • Entering the data was a long, slow process • Additional reviewers had to be recruited and trained • We needed more partners to build the database

25. Our partners were happy to share information with us

26. Connect Wyoming already had a database of health services • Since the database, with over 2500 records, was electronic and being distributed on CD ROMs, giving the data to NLM for upload was easy. • With one minor glitch—the URLs transferred, but not to the right records • Our reviewers began evaluating records, only to discover that a number of addresses and phone numbers were outdated

27. By April ,with less than 900 records reviewed, we were far short of our goal of 3,000 Our plan to increase our data entry people was delayed until grant money arrives ….and our Project Coordinator left More problems….

28. Lesson Learned… • We would have benefited from having more people trained in data entry, assigning the topical headings and reviewing from the start • But then, this is Wyoming, so finding those people is not as easy as finding livestock

29. Although we’re in a valley right now

30. We’ll reach that goal. It’s just a little steeper climb than we expected.

31. Questions?