Documentary portal participating to the dissemination of palliative care

Background and goal

Nothing is easier than searching information on Web. But, much time spent and any guarantee on sources. There are many information systems already available online in the field of health (BDSP – French public health database, Medline, Cairn, etc.), but few in the field of palliative care, death and bereavement, in particular for French-speaking people. Having a unique entry point which proposes selected and checked references, resources, tools, methods and advice, it’s a dream for any health professional…

To realize this dream, Information and Documentation Service of Centre National De Ressources Soins Palliatif (CNDR SP) is going to launch a documentary web portal on palliative care: VigiPallia. With its experience of over 10 years in management and dissemination of information in the field of caring, end of life, death and bereavement, it proposes reliable and easily available tool for professionals.

This article aims to introduce VigiPallia, its development methodology and the ensuing results.

Method and results

To develop this tool, Information and Documentation Service identified health professionals’ needs and expectancies faced with these issues.

Two surveys, conducted in 2009 and 2010 among French-speaking people, allowed to identify these needs. The first survey dealt with information use and practices of palliative care professionals; the second with the expectancies on documentary services and products (documentary synthesis, bibliographic fields, news, etc.). Based on this observation, Information and Documentation Service studied technologic solutions answering to this range of requests.

Thus, Information and Documentation Service thought and built VigiPallia related to its users and partners. Evolution of technology can offer today a precise, customizable and relevant tool: full text, synthesized information, unique search engine to several databases, methodological help… all within a few clicks!

Conclusion and future perspectives

Disseminating palliative care represents a daily challenge for each health professional. Implementation of VigiPallia can constitute a first answer to this challenge. More, this web portal is develop by documentalists team with savoir-faire for treating information and whose the main goal is innovation in response to changing needs.