The goal of the Hawaii Access to Computerized Health (HATCH) project is to use technology to improve the health of members of under served communities.
The specific aims are to: 1. Improve access to health information by fostering the use of computer and telecommunications technologies by community members and health care providers. 2. Improve health information availability in under served areas by connecting community learning centers to on-line national resource networks, health care providers, and health care professional schools via Internet and video teleconferencing modalities. 3. Provide video connectivity between community learning centers to facilitate sharing between communities and development of culturally sensitive health education information. 4. Monitor health statistics to demonstrate changes in communities served by the HATCH project. Grant activities include providing computers, web cameras, digital video cameras, Internet connectivity and training to 25 community learning centers across the state. Communities will be encouraged to access online resources, participate in educational activities together, and develop and share culturally sensitive methods for health education with other communities. Health care professionals will be provided with training and access to web based resources and telehealth modalities. Health statistics across the state will be monitored to determine if areas with HATCH equipment have significantly more improvement in health statistics than communities without.
| Withy, Kelley; Berry, Shaun; Moore, Nicole et al. (2007) Evaluation of distance learning for health education. Pac Health Dialog 14:142-5 |
