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Welcome to the CIAP Newsletter

Welcome to the first CIAP NEWS for 2007! We hope you will find our newsletter appealing and informative and we are pleased to announce that we will be releasing a regular bi-monthly newsletter going forward.

In our first issue, we will be providing you with current information on new resources and changes that we feel will be of interest. In future we would like to focus on specific databases and websites and we welcome your contributions. Please print this newsletter and pass it around to your colleagues.

If you have something that you would like to be published in the CIAP Newsletter, please send an email to the .

Happy reading!

Inside this issue:

• The CIAP User Survey
• CIAP has a new team
• Resources provided by The Cancer Institute NSW
• Decision support tools
• ARCHI - coming events
• CIAP Training - new trainer appointed
• New CIAP resources and changes
• Did you know?
• Schedule of updates for Drug Resources

The CIAP User Survey

Thank you to everyone who responded to the CIAP User Survey conducted in December 2006. we understand it was a very busy time of year and we were pleased by the responses, in fact 553 people from all groups of practitioners.

A summary of the key findings as well as a selection of comments is available on CIAP. Download a summary of key findings ( PDF 35KB).

The findings will provide us with information to improve our services to you.

Resources provided by The Cancer Institute NSW

We would like to the acknowledge The Cancer Institute NSW for their generous support in providing access to a vast collection of oncology resources which are now available on CIAP.

This funding initiative by The Cancer Institute NSW demonstrates their commitment to supporting knowledge access at point-of-care and the delivery of evidence-based practice. You are just a click away from a vast online library of quality textbooks and journals covering oncology, haematology, chemotherapy, palliative care, oncology nursing, radiation oncology and a wide range of related clinical specialties.

Download the flyer ( pdf format)

Decision support tools

A demonstration was held on the 16th February 2007 of Clinical Resources@Ovid, DynaMed, Isabel and ACP Pier to a group from the Knowledge Management Reference Group. A decision was reached not to proceed with a state wide trial as these products were not deemed suitable to user requirements at this stage.

Further evaluations of these services will take place later in the year.

CIAP Training - new trainer appointed

Please welcome Victoria Gardner, the new full time Clinical Educator, succeeding Michael Potts effective from 5 March 2007.

Victoria’s background is as a registered nurse for many years, working in areas such as midwifery, oncology, emergency, neonatal and general and surgical areas. Victoria will deliver the existing planned schedule of training and review the training delivery model. We hope to involve practitioners in the development of a new training program.

Michael will work with Victoria until the 15th March 2007 to ensure the handover transitions smoothly. We farewell Michael Potts and would like to thank him for his contribution over the past few years to the growth of CIAP.

Victoria’s details are victoria.gardner@hcn.com.au Phone: 0411257443

New CIAP Resources and changes

Micromedex - IV INDEX(r) System available
Available in Micromedex, IV INDEX(r) provides instant answers to IV compatibility questions with easy-to-interpret information.

When multiple IV medications are combined, the risk of complication is very real. Efficacy of one or more drugs can be reduced or a potentially dangerous incompatibility can occur. The IV INDEX(r) System provides easy access to proven data to help ensure accurate IV compatibility decisions.

The new IV INDEX features the parenteral compatibility piece of Trissel's(tm) 2, the latest database from the ultimate authority on IV compatibility - Lawrence Trissel. IV INDEX includes over 50,000 compatibility results and 600 unique drugs and solutions. IV INDEX also supports confident decisions with multiple studies and full study information including manufacturer, concentration, stability, and other conditions.

Features:

• 600 unique drugs and solutions
• Over 50,000 compatibility results
• Solution, Y-Site, syringe, and admixture compatibility information
• TPN/TNA data
• Allows for either single or multiple drug searches
• Uses a word wheel for easy drug name lookup.

MIMS DrugAlert

MIMS DrugAlert was made available in January. The MIMS DrugAlert Australia database allows drug interaction checking, including 'with complementary' and herbal medications. All interactions are graded according to severity and level of documented evidence.

Australian Injectable Drugs Handbook

AIDH (Australian Injectable Drugs Handbook - 3rd Edition) is produced by The Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia. AIDH is a collaborative venture between pharmacists and nurses nationally and exists electronically primarily because CIAP successfully lobbied for an online version.

Australian Medicines Handbook for PDA

The Australian Medicines Handbook is now available for PDA. You will need to register after downloading the program and your validation code will be sent to you. This program will be available for Palm Pilots from July 2007.

These two useful resources AIDH and pAMH can be accessed from the left hand side of the CIAP front page under “Other Drug Resources’.

Maternity and Infant Care

CIAP is pleased to announce that MIDIRS has been moved from the Silverplatter platform to the Ovid platform to standardise the search options and is now known as Maternity and Infant Care. This database represents a powerful research tool for users around the world and includes grey literature such as pamphlets, reports, web journals, press releases as well as references to journals. Full text links are also now fully operational from the JMS but are yet not available from OVID databases. This is expected to happen soon.

Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits ( the Yellow Book)

The Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits (effective 1 February 2007), is now available via CIAP under “Other Drug resources” and is a listing of the medicines subsidised by the Australian Government. The Schedule is part of the wider Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme administered by the Department of Health and Ageing and Medicare Australia.

Improved access to MD Consult and Nursing Consult journals

Direct access to the table of contents of the current issue of an MD Consult or Nursing Consult journal is now available from the A-Z journal list. MD Consult journal titles include the Clinics, Infectious diseases and pain medicine.

Schedule of updates for Drug Resources

CIAP online resources are updated regularly according to the following schedule:

• eTG Complete (Therapeutic Guidelines)is updated every four months.
• Micromedex is updated quarterly.
• MIMS is updated monthly (usually first Saturday of the month). If you have downloaded MIMS on your PDA you should update this monthly to stay current.
• pAHM (Australian Medicines Handbook for PDA) is updated twice a year (January/July). If you have downloaded this just before the new version is released (within 1 week) then the validation code that will be emailed to you will not work with the old version. To correct this you will need to delete the old version and start again with the new version. A new release date of pAHM for the PalmOS version is July 2007.

For any assistance with any of these services please call the CIAP Help Desk.

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