NEW Audio Feature

See, hear, understand. Natural Standard is pleased to announce the availability of NEW multi-media audio recordings of over 200 Natural Standard evidence-based English Bottom Line Monographs. Audio will be available for all English Foods, Herbs & Supplement topics in the coming months.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Health Interview Surveys, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is used by 38 percent of adults in the United States, and fewer than half of users disclose this to their healthcare providers. Over $40 billion is spent on CAM in the United States alone and more than 75 percent of healthcare providers seek clinical CAM information each year.

The aim of this NEW feature is to facilitate the education of healthcare providers and patients, encourage shared decision making and adherence by engaging patients in the learning process, and to improve health outcomes. Adding audio recordings to Natural Standard's online decision support tool aims to broaden accessibility to CAM information for individuals with limited time, active/mobile lifestyles, visual impairments and individuals with an auditory learning style.

Users may access this new feature by selecting the English Bottom Line reading level of a monograph. The audio option will appear on the left side of the screen. Currently available audio recordings include popular topics such as cinnamon, aloe, chia and creatine.

To listen to the NEW Natural Standard Audio Recordings, please visit Natural Standard's Foods, Herbs & Supplements Database.

Comments

[NBF]

This is such a great way for Natural Standard to provide information on natural medicine. I have friends and family that can not read English but can understand it so I think this will be a great resource for them.

[ML]

Congratulations to Natural Standard! I am so happy that I have been able to be part of this project. I agree that this has also been a great learning experience for all involved. This is especially true for learning how to pronounce all the words correctly. It is so great to have this feature for individuals with visual impairments. I personally learn best with audio such as in a classroom, I feel that this will be similar.

[deb]

I am just proud to be part of the NS team and implementing this feature. It is definitely user friendly for people who is driving, has visual impairment, or is a better auditory learner. Hope people will take advantage of this feature and CAM.

[bz]

This is a great new feature! I have a blind patient who complains constantly about the availability of information in Braille or blind-friendly formats. I will have to notify him of this new development on your website! Thanks for increasing access to such important information!

[SB]

I think this is a wonderful feature. People are very often pressed for time in this day and age, and having information read to people will allow people to multitask. Also many people have poor vision, or do not like looking at a computer screen for long periods of time. It is also a great learning experience for the students and residents who are taking part in this project.

[a]

I think that this feature is a great step in making health care information more accessible to the general population. This audio feature may help disseminate information not only people with vision impairment but also to those who may have difficultly with reading. I wonder what other features Natural Standard is in the works with to help broaden the accessibility of their information.

[BC]

I agree that this is a great feature available to the public in the NS databases. I hope that people will take advantage of this new addition and keep up to date on their knowledge of CAM therapy.

[bz]

This is an awesome new feature that will certainly help broaden the audience of Natural Standard. Many older patients I have would rather listen to information rather than read due to visual impairments and general dislike of reading dense information. I also have several deaf patients that would use this service. Great addition to the database!

[kl]

I'm so grateful to have been a part of this new feature for Natural Standard. Not only did I learn the information from the monographs I recorded, I learned the information from my peer's recordings as well. This is a great tool for auditory learners, like myself. I encourage everyone to download the mp3 links within the bottom line monographs and add them to your iPod to listen and learn on your daily commutes. A fun thing about these audio recordings is that they are done by a collaboration of students with vastly different voices and accents, which will help keep things interesting as you listen to more and more monographs. I definitely recommend tuning in!

[SS]

I love this new feature! Its just another option to get information out to the people in a different way. Hopefully by making the information more available we can get people to see the risks and benefits of complementary and alternative medicine.