Bidding farewell to HDAS and the NICE Evidence Search

As you are probably aware, NICE have taken the decision to close down both the Healthcare Databases Advance Search (HDAS) and the Evidence Search services as of the 31st of March 2022.

HDAS has been a key fixture of database searching for many years, allowing access to all the available databases through a single interface.

For more on the closure of HDAS, NICE has a page which includes information on how to export your saved searches.

From the 1st of April users will need to search using the different interfaces provided by the database suppliers. All of the databases you could previously search in HDAS are easily accessible via the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub with an OpenAthens password.

We have developed a user guide for each of the interfaces which you can find below:

• EBSCO interface for CINAHL
• OVID interface for Medline, Embase, Emcare, AMED, Social Policy & Practice, and HMIC
• ProQuest Interface for PsycInfo

We are also offering training to support users in making the transition to the new interfaces. Contact us if you would like to have some help with searching.

At the same time NICE are also closing their Evidence Search service. Sadly there is not a direct replacement for this, but the TRIP database is similar and well worth a look. You can also find some of the same content via the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub.

If you have any questions or need any help, please contact one of the libraries.

All library training cancelled

Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (of which Library Services is a part) has decided that all training should be cancelled until at least the end of June as part of their response to the COVID-19 situation.

We are sorry that we can no longer provide this training but there are some online alternatives that you could use.

Health Education England have provided an online course in planning a search and using the Healthcare Databases (HDAS) to carry it out. You can do the training without logging in but if you do it will not record your progress. If you wish to log in you can use an NHS OpenAthens account.

You will also need an OpenAthens account to use the NHS databases for searching for journal articles (module 7). If you do not have one you can register from here. If you already have an account but have problems with it please contact the library.

Once on the HDAS site there is more help available from these 2 pages: https://hdas.nice.org.uk/help/ and https://www.nice.org.uk/about/nice-communities/library-and-knowledge-services-staff/training-materials (which includes links to help videos on YouTube).

If you need a work-related literature search done then you can also contact the library and ask us to do that for you.

There is an online tutorial on critical appraisal. This covers RCTs, systematic reviews and economic evaluations and in each case there is a tutorial and a paper that you can download to appraise and then check your answers against the ones on the site.

The Understanding Health Research site also has a tool which guides you through a series of questions to help you to review and interpret a published health research paper.

We hope these will help, but if you have any questions regarding training, literature searching or critical appraisal, please contact one of the libraries.

New electronic journals collection available

Mark Allen Healthcare Complete

The Library Service has purchased a new collection of electronic journals for 2020.

Featuring over 65,000 articles across 26 titles, the Mark Allen Healthcare Complete collection is aimed at nurses, midwives and allied health professionals.

The titles available in the collection include:

• British Journal of Community Nursing
• British Journal of Healthcare Assistants
• British Journal of Healthcare Management
• British Journal of Mental Health Nursing
• British Journal of Midwifery
• British Journal of Nursing
• Dental Nursing
• International Journal of Palliative Nursing
• International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation
• Journal of Health Visiting
• Journal of Prescribing Practice (formerly Nurse Prescribing)
• + 15 others

For a full list of titles available see the MAH Collection poster online.

To access any of the individual titles from the MAH Complete collection you can:

• Go the the NICE Evidence Services Journals A-Z and search for the title you want
• Go the the Mark Allen Online Library and browse or search for titles 

You can also find links to all the MAH Complete content if you undertake a search on a topic using HDAS (the healthcare databases).

For any of these options you will need an OpenAthens password to access these (and thousands more) electronic journals. If you don't already have one you can register online for an account.

Please contact one of the libraries if you have any questions about accessing the collection. 

Library information skills training programme 2020

Need to find information to support your clinical practice? Need to make a decision but can't find the supporting evidence? Starting a course but can't find the study material? Found the evidence but unsure what it means? Going through nursing re-validation? We can help.

All of our training programme dates for 2020 are now available on the Library's web page.

Our courses are free to access for staff and attached students from Northamptonshire Healthcare and Northampton General Hospital.

They are aimed at both clinicians and managers who want to be able to find, evaluate and use the best possible evidence to support their decision making.

So what do we offer?

Tailored and one-to-one sessions

• If you can't make one of our workshops we can arrange a one-to-one session with you, either at one of the libraries or in your place of work if it is suitable.
• We can created a tailored session for your team or department and deliver it in any suitable location. From a 10 minute update on the library service to a full three hour training session, just let us know what you need.

Our scheduled workshops

• The PreCourse Course
  If you are returning to study, or starting a formal academic programme for the first time, our PreCourse Course may be just what you need. This three hour workshop is designed to give you the information skills you need to make you studies that bit easier. The session cover things like finding the material on your reading lists, using databases and how to identify good quality information. It also covers searching for evidence and guidelines and how to access electronic journals. Everything you should need to get you started.

• Literature Searching
  Our most popular course! If you need to access primary research, our literature searching course may be the answer.  This will enable you to effectively search a number of databases such as Medline, HMIC (healthcare management) or the British Nursing Index through the NHS's HDAS interface. We'll show you how to search, save your results and even access full text journal articles, straight from the databases.

• Critical Appraisal Skills
  Once you have found the evidence, you need to know what it means and if you can rely on it, and that is where our critical appraisal skills sessions come in.Our Introduction to Critical Appraisal workshop will take you through the statistics, terminology and process, while our highly interactive Critical Appraisal in Action session gives you the opportunity to appraise a research article in a group facilitated by one of our librarians.

• Evidence into Practice
  If you are a nurse undergoing revalidation, try our Evidence into Practice course. It offers the opportunity to refresh (or learn) your skills in searching for the latest evidence, while finding information that is relevant to your day to day work.Come to the course with a question related to your scope of practice and go away not only with updated skills, but also with evidence to feed back in to your department. You will log 2 hours and 30 minutes of CPD time and at the end of the session will complete one of the 5 reflective accounts required by the NMC for revalidation, based on what you have learned.

We run our workshops in a number of venues across the county:

• Berrywood Hospital
• Danetre Hospital in Daventry
• Northampton General Hospital
• St Mary's Hospital in Kettering.

If you have any questions or want to book a place on one of our workshops, you can find all the available dates and venues online or you can contact us for more information.

Databases out of action Sunday 22nd September

NICE are conducting some essential maintenance to HDAS (Healthcare Databases Advanced Search) starting on Sunday the 22nd September starting at 7 am.

The maintenance is scheduled to run until 7 pm

During this time HDAS will not be available.




There is also some maintenance being carried out on the OpenAthens system between 7 and 9 am on Monday the 23rd. This could also potentially cause problems with access to all of our electronic resources including journal, books and databases.

Apologies for any inconvenience.

Health Information Week day 4: NICE Evidence Search #HIW2019

Health Information Week is a national, multi-sector campaign to promote high quality information for patients and the public. High quality health information can have a huge impact on people’s ability to stay healthy and manage illnesses effectively, giving them a better quality of life.

Our campaign this year is focused on enabling clinicians to access good quality information aimed at the public which they can recommend to patients.

We have also produced Helping you to help your patients, which is a brief guide to evaluating information as well as recommendations for sites where you can find trusted information aimed at patients.

For day 4 of Health Information Week we are looking at the NICE Evidence Search service.

You may be familiar with using the NICE Evidence Search site as a way to access good quality health information including guidelines, systematic reviews, articles and web sites, but you can also use it to find information aimed at the public by the use of a simple filter.

Go to the site and enter your search term

From the search results page, simply scroll down and tick the "Information for the Public" box to apply the filter ↓

NICE Evidence Search will then give you information that has already been quality assessed that is suitable for the public.

Tomorrow for the final in our series of blogs for Health Information Week, we'll be looking at a site with lots of leaflets and videos aimed at patients...

New national collection of electronic resources available from April 2019

Health Education England have now finished their re-procurement of the NHS National Core Content.

The core content is a selection of electronic resources that are purchased on behalf of all NHS staff in England and available via NHS Open Athens accounts.

Following the re-procurement some services have been withdrawn from the core content collection and others added. Most notable on the withdrawals is the decommissioning of CINAHL plus with full text, which means the loss of a large number of nursing journals online, as well as the Health Business Elite database.

The new core content selection will be available from April 2019 until March 2022 and consists of:

Point of Care tool ~new~
HEE have announced the provision of a point of care tool.

BMJ Best Practice provides summaries of evidence to support decision making in clinical practice and offers "step by step guidance on diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and prevention is updated daily using robust evidence based methodology and expert opinion".

Databases (available via the HDAS interface):

• AMED (Allied and complementary medicine)
• British Nursing Index
• CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature)
• Embase
• Emcare ~new~
• HMIC (Health Management Information Consortium)
• Medline
• PsychInfo

Electronic journals collections (available via My Journals and HDAS)

• BMJ Publishing e-journals collection 
• Health Research Premium Collection (formerly ProQuest Hospitals Collection)
• PsychARTICLES 
• Psychology and Behavioural Sciences Collection ~new~

Please contact the Library Service if you have any questions about the national core content or any other of our electronic resources.

Library training programme 2019- now with new venues!

Need to find information to support your clinical practice? Need to make a decision but can't find the supporting evidence? Starting a course but can't find the study material? Found the evidence but unsure what it means? Going through nursing re-validation? We can help.

All of our training programme dates for 2019 are now available on the Library's web page.

Our courses are free to access for staff and attached students from Northamptonshire Healthcare and Northampton General Hospital.

They are aimed at both clinicians and managers who want to be able to find, evaluate and use the best possible evidence to support their decision making.

We also added two new venues for 2019, so as well as Berrywood and Northampton General Hospitals, you will also be able to access our training at Danetre Hospital in Daventry and St Mary's Hospital in Kettering.

So what do we offer?

Tailored sessions

• If you can't make one of our workshops we can arrange a one-to-one session with you, either at one of the libraries or in your place of work if it is suitable.
• We can created a tailored session for your team or department and deliver it in any suitable location. From a 10 minute update on the library service to a full three hour training session, just let us know what you need.

Our scheduled workshops

• The PreCourse Course
  If you are returning to study, or starting a formal academic programme for the first time, our PreCourse Course may be just what you need. This three hour workshop is designed to give you the information skills you need to make you studies that bit easier. The session cover things like finding the material on your reading lists, using databases and how to identify good quality information. It also covers searching for evidence and guidelines and how to access electronic journals. Everything you should need to get you started.

• Literature Searching
  If you need to access primary research, our literature searching course may be the answer.  This will enable you to effectively search a number of databases such as Medline, HMIC (healthcare management) or the British Nursing Index through the NHS's HDAS interface. We'll show you how to search, save your results and even access full text journal articles, straight from the databases.

• Critical Appraisal Skills
  Once you have found the evidence, you need to know what it means and if you can rely on it, and that is where our critical appraisal skills sessions come in.Our Introduction to Critical Appraisal workshop will take you through the statistics, terminology and process, while our highly interactive Critical Appraisal in Action session gives you the opportunity to appraise a research article in a group facilitated by one of our librarians.

• Evidence into Practice
  If you are a nurse undergoing revalidation, try our Evidence into Practice course. It offers the opportunity to refresh (or learn) your skills in searching for the latest evidence, while finding information that is relevant to your day to day work.Come to the course with a question related to your scope of practice and go away not only with updated skills, but also with evidence to feed back in to your department. You will log 2 hours and 30 minutes of CPD time and at the end of the session will complete one of the 5 reflective accounts required by the NMC for revalidation, based on what you have learned.

If you have any questions or want to book a place on one of our workshops, you can find all the available dates and venues online or you can contact us for more information.

We've updated some of our user guides

We know it isn't always easy to find the time to get to grips with electronic resources, which is why we have produced a number of handy guides to help you get the most out of them with the minimum of effort.

Our guide are practical with lots of screenshots to help you use our e-resources like a librarian!

We have recently updated three:

• The Cochrane Library - our guide will help you use the powerful search feature to find high quality evidence 
• Journals A-Z - a guide to finding and accessing thousands of online electronic journal titles using your OpenAthens log in
• NICE Evidence Search - our guide will show you how to search for high quality. NICE accredited information

You can find all of our user guides on the Library web site. Just go to the Useful Information tab and click on User Guides.

Disruption to OpenAthens Services Tuesday 9th of January

Due to essential maintenance, there may be disruption to the OpenAthens service nationally from 7 am - 9 am (and possibly later) on Tuesday the 9th of January. 



This is to ensure OpenAthens users are protected against the recently announced security flaw identified in “virtually every modern computer, including smartphones, tablets and PCs from all vendors and running almost any operating system"

The OpenAthens self registration pages may be unavailable and there could be disruption to the Journals A-Z or HDAS (databases) and to access for services such as ClinicalKey for the duration of the maintenance.

Apologies for any inconvenience...

Library training programme 2018

"If only I knew how to find the right evidence..."

Need to find information to support your clinical practice? Need to make a decision but can't find the
supporting evidence? Starting a course but can't find the study material? Found the evidence but unsure what it means? Going through nursing re-validation? We can help.

All of our training programme dates for 2018 are now available on the Library's web site.

Our courses are free to access for staff and attached students from Northamptonshire Healthcare and Northampton General Hospital.

They are aimed at both clinicians and managers who want to be able to find, evaluate and use the best possible evidence to support their decision making.

So what do we offer?

Tailored sessions

• If you can't make one of our workshops we can arrange a one-to-one session with you, either at one of the libraries or in your place of work if it is suitable.
• We can created a tailored session for your team or department and deliver it in any suitable location. From a 10 minute update on the library service to a full three hour training session, just let us know what you need.

Our scheduled workshops

• The PreCourse Course
  If you are returning to study, or starting a formal academic programme for the first time, our PreCourse Course may be just what you need. This three hour workshop is designed to give you the information skills you need to make you studies that bit easier. The session cover things like finding the material on your reading lists, using databases and how to identify good quality information. It also covers searching for evidence and guidelines and how to access electronic journals. Everything you should need to get you started.

• Literature Searching
  If you need to access primary research, our literature searching course may be the answer.  This will enable you to effectively search a number of databases such as Medline, HMIC (healthcare management) or the British Nursing Index through the NHS's HDAS interface. We'll show you how to search, save your results and even access full text journal articles, straight from the databases.

• Critical Appraisal Skills
  Once you have found the evidence, you need to know what it means and if you can rely on it, and that is where our critical appraisal skills sessions come in.Our Introduction to Critical Appraisal workshop will take you through the statistics, terminology and process, while our highly interactive Critical Appraisal in Action session gives you the opportunity to appraise a research article in a group facilitated by one of our librarians.

• Evidence into Practice

  

  "CPD time and a reflective account? Sign me up"

  
  If you are a nurse undergoing revalidation, try our Evidence into Practice course. It offers the opportunity to refresh (or learn) your skills in searching for the latest evidence, while finding information that is relevant to your day to day work.Come to the course with a question related to your scope of practice and go away not only with updated skills, but also with evidence to feed back in to your department. You will log 2 hours and 30 minutes of CPD time and at the end of the session will complete one of the 5 reflective accounts required by the NMC for revalidation, based on what you have learned.

A final goodbye to the old HDAS...

The Healthcare Databases Advance Search (HDAS) is the interface the NHS uses for literature searching healthcare databases such as Medline, the British Nursing Index or PsychInfo.

After extensive testing, NICE have finally decided to decommission the old version, and it will be no longer available from Friday the 3rd of March.

The good news is the newer version of HDAS is a great improvement on the old one whilst still providing access to lots of full text content. Easier to use, more intuitive and with better reliability, if you haven't already tried it out you can find it here. Like the previous version, you will need an OpenAthens account.

https://hdas.nice.org.uk/ 

There is lots of help available for using the new interface. We run training workshops on literature searching in various locations each month and can even arrange a one to one session if you can't make any of the dates.

If you can't make a training session, NICE have produced a series of short tutorial videos covering the new interface which you can find on YouTube, as well as both a quick guide and more detailed full user guide.

Important announcement for anyone using the BNF or BNFC app on an Apple device

NICE have announced there is a problem with using the BNF and the BNFC apps on iOS (Apple) devices.

A fault means a small amount of content in the apps is out of date.

You will need to delete the app(s) from your device and download a new version from the App store. This should solve any problems you may have been having.

This does not apply to Android devices.

The NHS databases are changing...

The interface we all use for searching the NHS databases such as Medline, PsychInfo or the British Nursing Index is changing.

HDAS (Healthcare Databases Advance Search) has been redeveloped by NICE with the plan to make it easier to use, more stable and reliable, and easier to update with any future technological changes.

The change over is due in October, but NICE have said they will retain the older interface "for a few weeks" to run along side the new one to give users a chance to become familiar with the new version (and to give NHS Libraries a chance to update all their training materials!)

If you have any saved searches, you will be able to migrate them into the new interface as long as they were created before the 12th of September. We would advise not creating any searches you plan to keep after this date until the new interface has gone live.

Below is a screenshot of the new interface. It brings together things that were on different screens and puts them all together on a single page. 

The HDAS interface will offer new features including the ability to export more records, more consistency and flexibility with thesaurus searching, more fields displayed in the results page and saved results that stay saved after you exit (unlike the current clipboard feature). It should also be more reliable.

We will be publicising the change over once we have a definitive date. If you would like to try out the beta version you can find it here http://beta-hdas.nice.org.uk/ (NHS OpenAthens password required)

June Eyes on Evidence from NICE - the last ever issue

June sees the publication of the last ever Eyes on Evidence from NICE Evidence Services. NICE have announced they are changing the way they are supporting awareness of new evidence (more information in the bulletin).

For the final time, in the June issue you can find:

• Eyes on Evidence: end of service
• Perioperative anticoagulation for people with atrial fibrillation
• Nurse-led titration of drug doses in chronic heart failure
• Basic versus advanced life support for medical emergencies
Ultrasound during pregnancy to identify small-for-gestational-age infants
• Balance training to prevent injuries from falls in older people
• Ongoing effects of child contact arrangements in cases of domestic abuse

Evidence summaries from NICE’s Medicines and Prescribing Programme:

• Chronic disease in people with severe mental illness: reducing excess mortality
• Meniere’s disease: betahistine not shown to be superior to placebo

May Eyes on Evidence from NICE

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this might mean for current practice.

In the May issue you can find:

• Surgery versus medical therapy in ulcerative colitis
• Self-monitoring for people on vitamin K antagonist anticoagulant therapy
• Shared decision-making: antibiotic use for acute respiratory infections
• Previous pregnancies in young women having an abortion
• Mental health of carers after bereavement

Evidence summaries from NICE’s Medicines and Prescribing Programme:

• Chronic wounds: advanced wound dressings and antimicrobial dressings
• Moderate to severe acute post-operative pain: sufentanil sublingual tablet system 
• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children and young people: guanfacine prolonged-release 
• Adverse events associated with off-label medicine use in adults
• Myocardial infarction: risks and benefits of extended dual antiplatelet therapy

You can find subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

February Eyes on Evidence

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this might mean for current practice.

In the February issue you can find:

• Risk of intracranial bleeding when antidepressants are used with NSAIDs
• Early identification of dementia with IQCODE in secondary care
• Smoking during pregnancy and risk of stillbirth
• Parental perceptions of child weight
• Long working hours, stroke and coronary heart disease

Evidence summaries from NICE’s Medicines and Prescribing Programme:

• Restless legs syndrome: Oxycodone/naloxone prolonged release
• External genital and perianal warts: green tea (Camellia sinensis) leaf extract 10% ointment
• Pregnancy: Effect of metformin on pregnancy outcomes in obese women without diabetes (EMPOWaR study)
• Obesity: liraglutide for weight loss among people with type 2 diabetes (SCALE study)

You can find subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

January Eyes on Evidence

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this might mean for current practice.

In the January issue you can find:

• Oxygen therapy for acute ST-segment-elevation myocardial infarction
• Managing chronic rhinosinusitis in adults
• Thyroid function testing in primary care
• Occupational therapy for older people with stroke-related disabilities who live in care homes
• Long-term mental health effects of bullying during adolescence

Evidence summaries from NICE’s Medicines and Prescribing Programme:

• Diabetes mellitus type 1 and type 2: insulin glargine biosimilar (Abasaglar)
• Type 2 diabetes mellitus in adults: high-strength insulin glargine 300 units/ml (Toujeo)
• Diabetic nephropathy: blood pressure-lowering therapy
• Early breast cancer: adjuvant bisphosphonate treatment beneficial in postmenopausal women

You can find subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

Library information skills programme for 2016

Need to find information to support your clinical practice? Need to make a decision but can't find the supporting evidence? Starting a course but can't find the study material? Found the evidence but unsure what it means? We can help.

All of our training programme dates for 2016 are now available on the Library's web site.

"The Pre-course Course made studying so much easier"

Our courses are free to access for staff and attached students from Northamptonshire Healthcare and Northampton General Hospital.

They are aimed at both clinicians and managers who want to be able to find and use the best possible evidence to support their decision making.

The courses run at a variety of locations including the Berrywood and Northampton General hospitals, as well as Bevan House in Kettering.

So what do we offer?

If you are about to return to studying a formal programme, our Pre-course Course may be just the thing. The course is designed to equip you with the information skills you need to make the path through you programme that bit easier. The 3 hour sessions cover things like finding the material on your reading lists, using databases and how to identify good quality information. It also covers searching for evidence and guidelines and how to access electronic journals. Everything you should need to get you started.

If you need to find research, then our Literature Searching course may be the answer. This will enable you to effectively search a number of databases such as Medline, HMIC (healthcare management) or the British Nursing Index through the NHS's HDAS interface. We'll show you how to search, save your results and even access full text journal articles, straight from the databases.

Once you have found the evidence, you need to know if it is any good and what it means, and again, we can help with that via our Critical Appraisal Skills programme.

So what is the NNT in this RCT then?

Our Introduction to Critical Appraisal workshop will take you through the statistics, terminology and process, while our highly interactive Critical Appraisal in Action session gives you the opportunity to appraise a research article in a group facilitated by one of our librarians.

As well as our published workshops, we can also create tailored sessions for you team or department, and  we can always do a one to one session if you can't make any of our published dates, and we can even come to you.

Finally, if face to face training is not your thing, or you just want a little help, we have a selection of videos on our YouTube channel that can help you with getting to grips with some of these skills.

August Eyes on Evidence from NICE

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this might mean for current practice.

In the August issue you can find:

• Quality of life in young people with cerebral palsy
• Fractional flow reserve to guide percutaneous coronary intervention in people with stable coronary artery disease
• Latanoprost for newly diagnosed open-angle glaucoma
• Childhood factors and inactivity in adulthood
• Positive and negative emotive content in tobacco control TV adverts

Evidence summaries from NICE's Medicines and Prescribing programme

• Type 2 diabetes: insulin degludec/liraglutide (Xultophy) 
• Type 2 diabetes: dulaglutide (Trulicity) 
• Ulcerative colitis: budesonide multimatrix (Cortiment) 
• Acute coronary syndrome: ezetimibe added to simvastatin (IMPROVE-IT study) 
• Gastrointestinal bleeding: differences among anticoagulants 
• Cardiovascular disease: risk of diabetes and statin treatment Risk of suicide, attempted suicide or self-harm with antidepressants

You can find subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.