Minervation

Evidence based healthcare consultancy

Evidence-based guidance for the management of acute dental problems – in your pocket!

How the MADP application looks on a smartphoneMinervation has teamed up with the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme to produce Management of Acute Dental Problems.

This evidence-based decision aid is for non-dental health professionals who are advising patients with oral health problems.

By selecting the patient’s symptoms, the system directs users towards the recommended care.

It also provides detailed background information about conditions that are the most likely causes of symptoms, along with further recommendations for management.

The application is based on relevant clinical evidence and validated clinical practice guidelines.  It has been developed in partnership with its intended users.  The full text of the guidance can be accessed directly from the SDCEP website.

In implementing the application, we aimed for a simple, HTML-based solution that would work on as many platforms as possible.  A mobile version has been provided for use with smartphones, and a response history function is available for users whose browsers support JavaScript.

We have also tested an offline version which can be downloaded and run locally.  This will be subject to further refinement focusing on version control.

Welcome to the Lida Blog

The Lida tool helps you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of health information on the web.

This section of the Minervation blog is dedicated to the Lida instrument, Minervation’s validation tool for health websites.

What is Lida?

Lida is an appraisal instrument that allows you to measure the quality of a health web site.

It is free, and is available as an online tool that generates a “scorecard” for a website, and as an annotated PDF document containing detailed instructions and explanations of each item,

What does Lida measure?

Here’s what we mean when we talk about the quality of a health website:

  1. Accessibility
    Is the information accessible to those who need it?
  2. Usability
    Can users make sense of it once they’ve got it?
  3. Reliability
    Is the information the website contains likely to be accurate?

Each of these domains is evaluated using a set of criteria, set out in the  accompanying PDF.

A note on Accessibility

We measure accessibility using an automated check. Our online tool looks at the HTML and metadata on a web page and scans for common errors that may affect accessibility.

This approach can only provide guidance as to the likely accessibility of a website and should not be considered definitive. A full accessibility audit, to the standards set out by the Web Accessibility Initiative, can only be correctly performed using human judgment and user involvement.

How can Lida be used?

You can use Lida as:

  1. qualitative guide to the strengths and weaknesses of a source
  2. a quantitative measure of quality to rank or compare many different sources
  3. a tool to assess individual pages or to assess a website as a whole.

What does “Lida” mean?

When we originally developed the tool, we thought about calling it “Minervalidation”. Fortunately we came to our senses in time. We couldn’t think of anything else so used the string “Lida”, because it conjoins Minervation and validation to make “Minervalidation”.

Where can I find out more?

Check back in the coming weeks to find out more about how people are using Lida to guide the development of good quality health information, and how we validated the instrument.

We want to hear from you about:

  • What makes good quality health information?
  • Does the Lida instrument address these issues properly?
  • What were your experiences of using Lida?

 

 

Healthy eating out in Scotland

We’re delighted to announce the launch of the healthy living award website.

The healthyliving award has been designed to make it easier for you to eat healthier food whenever you eat out. Many cafes, sandwich shops, workplace restaurants, colleges and other places where you buy meals and snacks across Scotland have made changes to the way they prepare food to ensure it’s done with your health in mind. These eateries will be displaying the healthyliving award logo and their certificate.

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PPI toolkit out now

The Patient and Public Involvement Toolkit, written by Minervation Associates Sally Crowe and Julia Cartwright, and edited by Minervation Dogsbody Douglas Badenoch, is now available.

The aim of the Toolkit is to help the reader undertake effective patient and public involvement (PPI) in health service development, research, policy or commissioning.

Like the rest of the Toolkit books, the PPI book is pocket-sized and designed to be easily accessible.  Sally and Julia’s extensive experience of making PPI work in a broad range of settings has given them a real insight into the practical steps you can take to ensure success.

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CONSORT Library of good reporting

CONSORT Logo

The CONSORT statement is an evidence-based, minimum set of recommendations for reporting RCTs.

You can now get involved in the effort to improve the quality of research reporting by sending examples of good practice to the CONSORT team.

Minervation has just delivered an add-on to their website that allows users to do just that.  Your examples are reviewed by the team and collated in a new section of the website:  the CONSORT Library.

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People in research: a new website connecting members of the public with researchers

By “getting involved in research” we mean active participation, such as sitting on a steering group, advising on funding applications or helping to write information for patients.

The site has a searchable database of opportunities, and researchers can register for the site and add their own projects to the database.  These are checked by INVOLVE staff before they go live to ensure that they meet quality standards.

We have also created an extensive collection of videos and textual resources that describe what it’s like to get involved, what sorts of roles people can play and how to make sure involvement is effective.

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