HealthPOWER! Prevention News (Fall 2011)—Veterans Health Library 

The Veterans Health Library—Information That Veterans and Clinicians Can Trust

Veterans will soon get an empowering new tool to take charge of their health and health care: the Veterans Health Library (VHL). Developed under the guidance of NCP's Veterans Health Education and Information (VHEI), the VHL will help Veterans, their families, and their health care teams take a more active, informed, collaborative approach to health care decision making—with information vetted or developed by VHA experts that's specific to Veterans' unique needs.

"We plan to 'soft launch' the VHL later this fall, so users can try it out," says Dr. Rose Mary Pries, VHEI Program Manager at NCP. "This will allow us to troubleshoot in preparation for making it more widely available, likely in early 2012, as VHA's most comprehensive source of Veteran-focused health education."

An Experienced Educational Partner

As an important component of NCP's Preventive Care Program, the VHL was initiated in spring 2010 to support VHA's new focus on Veteran-centered care. That fall, Krames Staywell, a market leader in patient education solutions, was awarded the contract for developing the content and designing the Web site for the VHL. Krames has a track record of improving patient care and satisfaction at the 70 percent of VA medical facilities (and over 85 percent of American hospitals) to which it provides one of the most extensive health education and information libraries available.

Collaborative Contributions

In addition to Krames' educational material, content has been provided by the VA Central Office's (VACO's) clinical program offices, which also are working with VHEI to develop new VHA-specific content in their specialty areas. The collaborative efforts of VHEI, VACO program offices, and Krames have generated an enormous amount of health content for potential inclusion in the VHL. The result of this multi-partner involvement is that "the VHL is wide-ranging in clinical scope and takes into account the health literacy and numeracy needs of Veterans and their families," says Dr. Pries.

Intensive Development

All of Krames' existing content has undergone an intensive and time-consuming review by approximately 70 well-respected subject matter experts (SMEs), who were carefully chosen by VACO clinical program offices. This review will be ongoing and will ensure that VHL content

• Provided by Krames meets VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guidelines
• Follows VHA clinical policies, directives, and handbooks
• Is in accord with VHA's Clinical Preventive Services Guidance Statements

 The SMEs are not only reviewing Krames' content in areas such as preventive medicine, infectious disease, cardiology, and diabetes/endocrinology. They also are suggesting VHA-created content for the VHL that includes topics such as posttraumatic stress disorder, Agent Orange exposure, combat-related cold injury, and traumatic brain injury. These Veteran-specific health topics are not easily found in other health Web sites, but are featured in the VHL. "We want to ensure that the VHL content is customized—both in its content and design—to address the health issues that are most pressing to Veterans, their family members, and VHA clinicians right now," explains Dr. Pries.

But the VHL will be more than just a repackaging of health information; it will be tailored to the Veteran in how and what it delivers. Dr. Pries explains that "the result of this intensive review process and the collection and development of new VHA-specific content is that the VHL will provide concise information that Veterans and their caregivers can really use and completely trust." Equally important to clinical staff is that the information has been vetted by VHA's SMEs and can be easily accessed and used in face-to-face, telephone, and secure messaging clinical encounters.

Field-Tested

In addition to establishing the clinical value of the VHL, VHEI has confirmed its practical value. In May 2011, Veterans and their families tested the usability of the VHL. Soon afterwards, VHEI extended the offer to field test the library to VHA stakeholders and clinical staff. They turned out in unprecedented numbers to assess the VHL's navigational, informational, and educational value.

"The industry standard for response is around 4 percent," explains Dr. Pries. "An impressive 43 percent turned out to assess the VHL!" More than 500 leaders, stakeholders, and front-line clinical staff responded, demonstrating the depth of VHA's commitment to high-quality, evidence-based care. "We received page after page of feedback on the library," said Dr. Pries. "The input was very insightful and was used in creating the VHL's engaging 'feel'—the photos on the Web site look like Veterans, for example, and the information is written in 'plain language'." This feedback has added another level of quality control to the VHL content, in that the information will be relevant and user-friendly.

Building Knowledge and Partnership

"We developed the VHL to be not only a trusted source of Veteran-specific health information, but also a tool to strengthen the partnership between Veterans and VHA health care teams," says Dr. Pries. She believes that the VHL is another great example of the ways that VHA is "defining excellence in the 21st century" and transforming the way in which Veterans receive—and clinical staff members provide—health care.

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