Consumer health at NYU

The NYU Langone Medical Center’s three Consumer Health Libraries are staffed by professional medical librarians who connect patients, family members, caregivers, and prospective patients to quality health information resources. Our librarians connect information seekers with current, credible health information that is understandable to them and that supports them in making informed decisions about their healthcare. We respond to questions by email, by telephone, by fax, by mail, at visits to our libraries, and in person at a patient’s hospital room.

Our librarians also work closely with healthcare providers, clinicians, and researchers. We collaborate with healthcare providers and clinicians to provide appropriate informational resources to interested patients and family members in order to complement their patient experience at NYU Langone Medical Center. Our team of consumer health librarians also works closely with clinicians to create and to design patient education materials that inform and that deepen understanding.

Our librarians also work with clinician colleagues in order to support the work they do for patients and families. We provide reference and bibliographic assistance for research projects, we facilitate access to information in order to save clinicians valuable time, we teach classes about health literacy trends and consumer health information, we build collections of books and electronic resources, and we share knowledge about current awareness tools and information technology to keep researchers and clinicians aware of the most recent developments in their discipline. We also serve on various Medical Center committees where we represent the information needs of patients to the larger NYU Langone Medical Center community.

We hope that services provided through the Consumer Health Libraries will enrich the patient experience at NYU Langone Medical Center.