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Clinical Center Communications
Clinical Center Communications (CCC) communicates the Clinical Center's programs and activities to its internal and external audiences. This includes making sure that information flows to and from the public, interdepartmentally within the Clinical Center, and to other institutes through the well-established network of NIH public information offices.
CCC sponsors the Clinical Center's primary public outreach effort--the annual Medicine for the Public lecture series. This marked the series' 22nd year. The well-attended presentations featured brain imaging, environmental risks for disease, medical ethics in health care, childhood hyperactivity, kidney cancer and genes, and dental health.
CCC coordinates a busy media relations program for the hospital and its programs. During FY '98, staff received more than 150 requests from the media for information, interviews, and story ideas resulting in communications about the Clinical Center appearing in national, local, and trade newspapers and television and radio programs. Staff work with reporters and editors to identify spokespersons and refine story ideas on general clinical research issues, including the design and conduct of the research, patient recruitment, specialized hospital programs, and educational efforts in clinical research. CCC staff also provide logistical support to the Institutes in their press efforts that involve patients. Interactions involving the news media generally require that CCC staff be at the Clinical Center an average of 2 to 3 days a week.
CCC continued to coordinate broadcasting of Clinical Center Grand Rounds through a cooperative arrangement with Healthcare Management Television's CenterNet and the Association of Academic Health Centers. The audience includes 56 academic health sciences centers and more than 2,000 hospitals subscribers to TiP-TV, a training and education network provided by GE Medical Systems. Ten rounds were broadcast in FY '98.
Through its editing service, CCC edited 18 scientific manuscripts, including four Clinical Staff Conferences submitted to Annals of Internal Medicine, three Clinical Center Grand Rounds submitted to the Journal of the American Medical Association, and 49 consent documents.
Publication projects included updates for the Clinical Pathology Guide and the Universal Precautions booklet; the Imaging Sciences Training Program brochure; the Bioethics Consultation Service brochure; Isolation Guidelines flipchart; Isolation Guidelines; Nutrition Tray Service brochure; Bioethics Pre- and Post-Doctoral Fellowship flyers; the Nursing Department's Annual Meeting and Awards program; and the annual Clinical Studies guide.
Patient education publications included: Gates of Healing; Patients' Bill of Rights; Preparing for Transfusion Therapy (Spanish); Coping with Chronic Illness; Supine and Upright Blood Sampling; The Art of Relaxation (Spanish); Welcome to 8 East; Primary Aldosteronism; Understanding Transsphenoidal Surgery; Come with Cary to the Operating Room (a coloring book for children); Diabetes Insipidus: What kind of diabetes is that?; Venous Sampling for Primary Aldosterone Protocols; Managing Your Hickman Catheter; Metabolic Studies for Primary Aldosterone Protocols; A Patients' Leisure; Guide to the Bethesda, Metropolitan Area; Isolated Double Limb Perfusion; Your Visit to the Medical Genetics Clinic; Bronchoscopy; Impact of Pediatric Illness Scale.
CCC staff developed major campaigns to meet the information dissemination needs of Clinical Center departments and managers, including:
- The Way to Go Campaign. This campaign is designed to provide details on getting around the Clinical Center during construction and relocation of the main entrance to the building's south.
- Patient Communications. CCC developed a web-based series of fact sheets for Institute protocol coordinators to use when sending written instruction to patients. This project, a collaboration with the NIH Ambulatory Care Committee and the Clinical Center Outpatient Department, helps standardize information given to patients. This information must be easily and quickly updated as construction at the Clinical Center and across NIH continues.
- Patient Education. CCC collaborated with the Patient Education Task Force to structure a mechanism for evaluating and archiving patient educational materials. This oversight is mandated by new Joint Commission on Healthcare Organizations standards.
- 1998 Flu Campaign. This effort promotes participation in the influenza vaccination campaign.
- The Incentives Committee. Staff collaborations covered communications and education issues in this new Clinical Center initiative.
- The Clinical Center Diversity and Quality of Worklife Councils. Staffs provide communications expertise and advice in these collaborative efforts.
CCC continues to oversee the Clinical Center's web site, develop new sites to meet information program needs, and review new site additions. New web projects in FY '98 included work for the Patient Recruitment and Referral Center, the 1997 Annual Report, a comprehensive site for the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center; sites for Grand Rounds and Clinical Pathologic Conferences; and sites for the Clinical Pharmacology Residency Program; the Department of Anesthesia and Surgical Services site; and a special site for the Imaging Sciences Training Program that was debuted at the 1998 meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
Patient education materials adapted for the web included: Handling Sharp Objects Safely at Home; Patients' Bill of Rights; Handling Chemotherapy Drugs Safely at Home; Preparing for Transfusion Therapy (English and Spanish) Confidentiality Education Group site; Managing Adrenal Insufficiency; Understanding Transsphenoidal Surgery; the HIV Counseling Program Section of the Social Work Department site; Giving a Subcutaneous Injection Managing Your PICC/SICC Catheter; Patient Handbook; Partners in Research; Testing Clinical Center Patients for Antibodies to HIV; Patient Responsibilities; Research Study Information: What to Expect During your Autologous Stem Cell Transplant for Breast Cancer; Research Study Information: Effects of Raloxifene on Premenopausal Women at High Risk for Breast Cancer; NCI Bowel Prep Patient Information; Coping with Chronic Illness; and Your Visit to the Medical Genetics Clinic.
In FY '98, CCC coordinated efforts to plan and introduce a new NIH lecture. The first Astute Clinician Lecture was presented October 15, l998. The Astute Clinician Award was established through a gift from Dr. and Mrs. Robert Miller. The award honors a U.S. scientist who has observed an unusual clinical occurrence, and by investigating it, has opened an important new avenue of research. Dr. J. Bruce Beckwith, the first recipient of the Astute Clinician Award, is professor and head of the Division of Pediatric Pathology of the Department of Pathology and Human Anatomy at Loma Linda University in California, and Director of the National Wilms Tumor Study Pathology Center.
In FY '98, the Special Events Section (SES) hosted the NIH Visitors Program where more than 1,800 high-level local and foreign government representatives, medical professionals and students met with Clinical Center and NIH administrators, scientists, and clinicians to exchange scientific and health information. SES welcomed finalists of the annual Westinghouse Science Talent Search who met with researchers in their fields of interest, and conducted bi-weekly tours and orientations for new Clinical Center employees.
SES coordinated the scientific seminar series, the Wednesday Afternoon Lectures, launched by the NIH director in 1994. Hosted by NIH's inter-Institute interest groups, the weekly series includes top biomedical scientists in the world.
The lecture series includes two NIH lectures, the Margaret PittmanLecture, the G. Burroughs Mider Lecture, the R.E. Dyer Lecture, and the Cultural Lecture.
On October 29, 1998, the NIH Director's Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series presented Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, director-general of the World Health Organization. Dr. Brundtland discussed "The New WHO and Partnerships for the Future." In addition, The First Stetten Museum/NHGRI History of Genetics Lecture was initiated on November 9, 1998. Other lectures included in the Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series are the DeWitt Stetten, Jr., Lecture, the Florence Mahoney Lecture, the George Khoury Lecture, the Robert S. Gordon, Jr. Lecture, the James A. Shannon Lecture, the FAES Paul Ehrlich Lecture, and Fogarty International Lecture and the General Motors Laureates Lecture.