Hold the Front Page - a new current awareness and learning experience for health professionals in NHS Scotland

摘要

For those working to control and prevent healthcare associated infections (HAI) it is important to keep fully up to date in an area that has extensive media coverage, is served by a growing and diverse literature, and is the theme of many events and initiatives at a local, national and international level. The NHS Education for Scotland e-library (www.elib.scot.nhs.uk) has constructed portals focusing on health specialties.These act as information hubs at the centre of knowledge networks, one of which is dedicated to HAI (www.elib.scot.nhs.uk/portal/hai/pages). The aim is to create a sharing and learning culture, and a service that is truly developed by the users. Healthcare professionals often have limited time to access online services at work. Services therefore need to be carefully designed to maximize relevant, tailored current awareness, information discovery and opportunities to contribute. If this is achieved, it is more likely that users will visit regularly. This paper discusses the development of the HAI Portal and its attempt to work on different levels according to users' needs, provide current awareness just the right side of information overload and focus on key issues without losing the serendipity on which multidisciplinary work can thrive.