Tuality Healthcare, a system of two hospitals and various clinical and outpatient services, is seeking funds to establish Internet access for the organization. The long-term objective is to have a well-educated population of Tuality Internet users (physicians, staff, and affiliated healthcare providers) who are skilled in obtaining and sharing health information via the Internet. A foundation will also be laid for studying the feasibility of providing health information via the Internet. Grant funds will be used specifically to implement a security firewall. This implementation will consist of hardware and software acquisition, configuration, testing and integration into the existing network environment. Ongoing training in Internet use and database searching will also be planned and implemented. The resulting communication link will provide a way for Tuality physicians and staff to: 1) access information resources available via the Internet 2) share clinical information within our system and with outside providers 3) participate in a state-wide effort to develop common communication interface for exchanging clinical and comparative hospital information between providers and hospital systems.
