BNURS 460 A & B: Translating Scholarly Knowledge to Nursing Practice (Niitsu & Eaton) [and Winter 2024, BNURS 360A: Critical Reading & Information Literacy (Wade)]: HEALWA

HEALWA, located online at heal-wa.org, provides evidence-based information for eligible health professionals in Washington State, and has over 10,000 full text journals.

1. What is HEALWA? Answer: It is a way for eligible licensed health professionals to access online resources such as Nursing Reference Center, ClinicalKey, DynaMed Plus, Natural Medicines, Joanna Briggs Library, MedLine, and CINAHL. You can go to the heal-wa.org site and look at what is available.
2. Who has access to HEALWA? Answer: Nurses who are currently licensed in WA state as LPNs or RNs can access HEALWA, as well as members of all of the professions that were included in the legislation. The following is from the About: HEALWA Eligible Professions page,  "The professions that are eligible to access HEALWA include Acupuncturist/Acupuncture and Eastern Medicine Practitioner, Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioners, Chiropractors, Dietitians, Licensed Practical Nurses, Marriage & Family Therapists & Marriage & Family Therapy Associates, Massage Therapists, Mental Health Counselors, Midwives, Naturopathic Physicians, Nutritionists, Occupational Therapists, Occupational Therapy Assistants, Optometric Physicians, Osteopathic Physicians, Physicians, Physician Assistants, Podiatric Physicians, Psychologists, Registered Nurses, Social Workers, Clinical Social Work Associates, Speech Language Pathologists, Veterinarians and Veterinary Technicians."
3. The mission of HEALWA is to serve eligible health professionals throughout Washington State, beyond the UW.
   • Are full text articles from the UW linked in article databases such as CINAHL and PubMed? Answer: No, but HEALWA does have over 9,000 full text journals, and databases such as MedLine Complete, CINAHL Complete, DynaMed, and the Nursing Reference Center. 
4. Is CINAHL the same through HEALWA and the UW? Answer: No, the level of access to full text articles is much higher through the UW Libraries subscription to CINAHL. HEALWA has access to over 10,000 online journals, and the UW Libraries subscribes to 13,000 health related online journals.
5. Help: Who can I contact with HEALWA questions?
   • See the "Contact Us" page, or use the email address: healwa@healwa.org
   • Patricia Devine, Community Outreach Coordinator: devine@uw.edu
6. What does HEALWA have that the UW does not offer? Answer: The UW Libraries has access to many more e-resources than HEALWA presently has, but there are a few that the UW does not have.They include:

• DynaMed Plus: A point of care resource that provides concise summaries and detailed recommendations based on the most current evidence. Practitioners can easily see the levels of evidence and guidelines behind each recommendation.
• Joanna Briggs Library: A unique suite of information resources to help integrate evidence into your practice. Includes publications such as best practice information sheets, evidence summaries, and systematic reviews.
• Nursing Reference Center Plus: Provides evidence-based information for point of care, continuing education, nursing and research.
• Patient Education Reference Center  (Note from Janet Schnall: The patient handouts here are also accessed through the Patient Ed section of the Nursing Reference Center, but since they subscribe to PERC, they have almost double the number than we do, approx 12,000 compared to 6-7,000).