The Madison County Health Department is an independent health department that operates a total of seventeen individual clinic and MEPCO Home Health sites in Madison, Estill, and Powell Counties. The clinic sites address a range of client needs and include clinics in the cities of Richmond and Berea, a collaborative Nurse Midwifery Program housed at Patti A. Clay Hospital, and school health clinics staffed by registered nurses and itinerant clerical support. In addition to the clinic sites, the Health Department has environmental health services and five MEPCO Home Health Agency sites. The objective of this application is to provide Internet access and e-mail communication abilities to administrators and staff of each Madison County Health Department site. Nursing supervisors and staff will benefit from the increased access to timely health services information as well as from increased opportunity to monitor and participate in the national shifts occurring in public health. All staff will benefit from the ease of communicating via e-mail, both among agency sites and with other medical and social services providers in the community. Funds from this grant will be used to establish Internet access at all sites through the installation of a general purpose server, including facility preparation and contracting with a consultant. The remainder will cover the cost of providing training to key personnel. Once trained, key personnel will provide inservice trainings to all staff. Inservice training or demonstration of adequate Internet skill will be required for all staff before individual access is approved. The Madison County Health Department is prepared to assume all costs of maintaining Internet access beyond the project funding.
