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Conversation on AIDS.gov with Gale Dutcher, National Library of Medcine

[Miguel Gomez]: Hello, this is Miguel Gomez with AIDS.gov. Today we are at the Library of Medicine with our colleague. I am going to ask our colleague to introduce herself and explain her role and responsibility with AIDS info.

[Gale Dutcher]: My name is Gale Dutcher. I am Deputy Associate Director in the Division of Specialized Information Services at the National Library of Medicine. My role in terms of AIDS is to manage the AIDSInfo service, which is a service of the Department of Health and Human Services. We coordinate this on behalf of several of our other sister agencies including NIH, CDC, HRSA and FDA provide a lot of input into what we do as well. The AIDSInfo service is a really important service that provides access to AIDS treatment guidelines as well as other kinds of AIDS related research, clinical trials, consumer treatment information and drug information.

[MG]: Gale, you described a clear role and responsibility related to AIDSInfo, a very important website to moving information. Can you explain what AIDSInfo’s role and responsibility is?

[GD]:: I’d be happy to. AIDS Info is a web intensive application that provides the world with access to many different pieces of AIDS information. The most notably is the AIDS treatment guidelines, the NIH Office of AIDS Research manages several guidelines panels, experts in HIV who develop treatment panels based on the latest scientific information. They are constantly reviewing the most current literature and their knowledge of what is going on in AIDS treatment and research and put together treatment guidelines that are used worldwide for providing the most up-to-date treatment. They review all of the results of clinical trials and we work with them to make sure that the treatment guidelines are finished editorially, that the references are up-to-date. Then we make it all available on the website. And in addition to making it available on the website, we have information specialists who will answer phone calls about how to find the most up-to-date information.

Besides the treatment guidelines, we provide access to the AIDS related clinical trials that are included in NLM’s clinical trial dot gov database. We put together a lot of additional supplementary information about the drugs. We have a drug database and additional information for consumers mainly about treatment based on the treatment guidelines.

[MG]: Thank you, Gale. You clearly describe that AIDSInfo is leading the way to move information out about treatment and research. You also understand the importance of new media and getting information out to providers and people living with HIV/ AIDS. What advice do you have on using new media in response to HIV/AIDS?

[GD]: Again, I think using new media or the social media, it is very important to know your audience. For the primary audience for the AIDS treatment guidelines which are health professionals which are actually treating people with AIDS, the main focus that we have right now is on developing really updated mobile versions of the treatment guidelines. Developing them for different platforms is fairly complex. We have a very basic version that can be downloaded into almost any smart phone or access on the web. But we are really looking at seeing what we can do to develop specialized products for the different kinds of smart phones, particularly the iPhone, which is gaining great popularity in the health professional community.

Some of the other social media tools that the National Library of Medicine is using and exploring are other venues that are really geared more towards the consumer. So, for our purposes, we will move them a little bit down on our target list for the time being.

[MG]: Thank you, Gale. This is Miguel Gomez with AIDS.gov.