News > Evaluating the quality of health information

You can now submit entries for the BMA Patient Information Awards 2012. The Awards aim to encourage the production and dissemination of accessible, well-designed and clinically balanced patient information. The BMA accepts entries in the form of leaflets, websites and other digital and online resources.

All entries will be considered for the overall BMA Patient Information Resource of the Year Award, regardless of their format but the BMA now have new special award categories developed with PiF members.  Resources must have been published in  2010, 2011 or before the end of February 2012 and must be in English as they have no means of reviewing other languages. The BMA now limit entries to five for each organisation.

There are four mandatory criteria which all entries should meet:

• Date of publication
  Resources entered must clearly state the publication date. It must have been produced or revised within the previous two years.
• User involvement
  Applicants will be asked to confirm that they have involved users in the development of their resource and to give details of the ways in which this was done.
• Health professional involvement (or an appropriate expert or specialist)
  Applicants will be asked to confirm that they have involved health professionals (or other experts) in the development of their resource and to give details of the ways in which this was done.
• References or sources of information
  Applicants will be asked to give details of the evidence base for their resource (references or sources of information they have used in the development of their information).

The recent review of the awards has focussed on a new appraisal form, the recruitment of reviewers and the format of the Awards ceremony,  The new online appraisal form includes new assessment criteria which were suggested by our review panel of patient information specialists,  question-specific guidance, an automatic scoring system and a feedback option.

The organisers of the PIA are grateful to our team of reviewers, the reviewers who volunteered for telephone interviews and the patient information specialists who came to our consultation meeting in summer 2011.

The deadline for entries is the end of February 2012.

Please forward this email to any of your colleagues who might be interested in submitting resources to the awards.  Please do not hesitate to contact Richard Jones if you need any further information, at: info.piawards@bma.org.uk or 020 7383 6614 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 020 7383 6614 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting    020 7383 6614  end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

You can find more information about the conditions of entry, the criteria for selection and judging criteria, from our awards home page:
http://www.bma.org.uk/piawards

Please fill out the online entry form for each resource you enter:
http://web2.bma.org.uk/bmalibrary.nsf/pipm?OpenForm