The Georgia Interactive Network for Medical Information (GaIN for Medical Information) is a new concept in health networks that will provide a coordinated learning resource and education support system for rural Georgia. This computer-based, interactive network will offer a wide range of information-providing services to local hospitals and individual practitioners. GaIN will be designed with a hierarchial structure composed of a central resource library at Mercer University School of Medicine, hospital libraries which are members of the existing consortium of Health Sciences Libraries of Central Georgia, and practice sites. GaIN will thus carry the Biomedical Communications Network directly into grassroots health care settings while encouraging the development of local resources. The goals of GaIn are: to demonstrate that information transfer can occur in an efficient and enlightened manner in rural sites; to develop a model educational support network that incorporates physicians into a health information system, thereby helping to retain them in their rural practices; to instill in MUSM students as a fundamental behavior effective information seeking and information acquiring behavior, and to encourage the development of these behaviors in rural practice settings touched by GaIN; and to develop, implement and evaluate the function of a technologically-based rural clinical medical library program.
| Bartlett, O; Rankin, J A; Statom, S T (1988) GaIN: a network of physicians and hospitals in Georgia. J Med Assoc Ga 77:632-7 |
| Rankin, J A; Williams, J C; Mishelevich, D J (1987) Information system linking a medical school with practitioners and hospitals. J Med Educ 62:336-43 |
