Health Information Week - Media Literacy

Health Information Week is a national, multi-sector campaign promoting high-quality information for
patients and the public.

The theme for today's Health Information Week post is all about media literacy. 

How do we know what health news we can trust and do we know if it is accurate? This is a key health issue with the rise of social media and these media literacy resources aim to give patients the skills to make these judgements.

Checking the news yourself

• FactCheck: How to spot fake news (video) www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkwWcHekMdo
• Full Fact: Fact checking toolkit https://fullfact.org/toolkit/

Health news already checked

• Full Fact: Health https://fullfact.org/health/all/
• Health Feedback: https://healthfeedback.org/
• BBC Reality Check (not just health news): www.bbc.co.uk/news/reality_check

Sharing news and social media

• UK Government: Share Checklist https://sharechecklist.gov.uk/
• Poynter Institute: 10 tips for verifying viral social media videos www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2018/10-tips-for-verifying-viral-social-media-videos/ 

We have also updated our guide to good quality sources of information for patients which you can find on our web site here.

You can find a complete list of resources around media literacy with more links and including games and activities for children on the Health Information Week web site here.

Web site of the month: Twitter. A guide to searching for research purposes

As it has become ubiquitous, social media is a useful source of information, but how do you get the most from it when looking for information?

Produced by an NHS Librarian from the North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust and hosted on the NHS Networks site, this short guide looks at using Twitter as a source of reference and for research purposes.

The guide takes you through the different kinds of content you can find on Twitter and the tools you can use to organise your Twitter account and some techniques to make the best of them.

The guide also includes tips of how to best search Twitter to find the information you need, including using the advanced search options.

Finally it also shows you how to cite a Tweet if you need to include it in your bibliography.

Evidence for everyday nursing and midwifery

The UK Cochrane Centre have started a new social media based service to share the latest evidence in nursing and midwifery called Evidence for Everyday Nursing and Evidence for Everyday Midwifery.

The service offers evidence on common topics in nursing or midwifery in short summaries they call "blogshots" (like the one below), with links to the full evidence (often Cochrane reviews), if you want to look further.

See the evidence at the Cochrane Library

The service is available across a number of social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

We think following the the hashtags #EENursing or #EEMidwifery on Twitter is the easiest way to keep up with what's new (and if you are unsure about Twitter you can contact us for help).

This is a very easy way to keep up to date with the latest evidence affecting everyday practice, and also a useful resource in helping with revalidation. You can even share it with your colleagues or the wider professional community.

If you want more information you can find it on the Evidently Cochrane blog.

The NHS Change Model Twitter Club

NHS Change Model

The NHS Change Model is a framework for change to help NHS commissioners and providers improve how they go about improvement and deliver NHS goals for quality and value through a common language for change. There is a video on the site that offers an introduction to the model.

The Twitter Club is a regular fortnightly conversation for anyone interested in the Change Model and will be used to help further develop it.

The Twitter Club operates on Wednesdays between 4 and 5 pm and uses the hashtag #NHSchange.

If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, the club page provides an overview on how to set up an account and get started, as well as how to join in the conversation. You can also take the Twitter Tour!

The next event is on Wednesday the 16th of January and the discussion will be on "How can we use and share information to drive change and transformation"

Don't forget you can follow us on Twitter too!