healthnetwork: About Us

About Us

The Health Information Access Project is a Public Library initiative in partnership with Lancaster County Hospitals/Health Care Providers and United Way of Lancaster County that’s designed to provide reliable health information to Lancaster County residents in a variety of forms. The project components include programming provided by Lancaster County Hospitals; online web portal for public access; collection enhancement of circulating books on consumer health/wellness at public libraries and hospital health libraries; and printed information in the form of flyers, brochures, etc. that will be distributed throughout the county at public libraries, hospitals and other designated locations.  The Health Information Access Project is funded by a LSTA (Library Services and Technology Act) Grant from Commonwealth Libraries.

The Health Information Access Project involves these basic components:


Web Portal to Health Information Network

  • Links for General Health Information; Doctor/Hospital Finder; Drug Information; Organizations & Specific Diseases; Alternative Health Resources; Clinical Trials; RSS Links to Current Health News Stories, etc.
  • Web Links for community services referral [United Way LINC]
  • Outsourced Virtual Health Reference

Training Sessions for Reference Staff

  • Training sessions that address subjects of health literacy; health reference questions; health resource collection development; and database searching.

Collection Development for Library Materials on topics of Health & Wellness

  • Inclusion on the Library System’s Online Catalog (Millennium) records of print books, videos and audio tapes held by Lancaster General Hospital’s library and other hospital health libraries for public to search
  • Provision of information and reviews of most current health books and other library materials on the subject of Health and Wellness.

Health / Wellness Programming @ Public Libraries

  • All four health providers have agreed to provide Health/Wellness programming at our public libraries. Information about Speakers Networks and available program topics with a hospital contact person.These programs will be available on an ongoing basis.

Health Information Print Materials

  • Designated displays and sections in all public libraries to include printed materials on health information (flyers, brochures, bookmarks, bibliographies, etc.)
  • Inclusion of print books, videos and audio tapes on health information possibly as separate designated area of public libraries


Content Last Modified on 3/13/2008 10:30:47 AM