The purpose of this project is to provide high speed Internet access to the health professionals located in 12 sites of two federally funded community health centers in Providence, Pawtucket, and Central Falls, Rhode Island. The health professionals of the community health centers provide primary care to the highest risk, inner city residents in three of Rhode Island's core cities. Access to Internet based medical information, evidence-based medicine, practice guidelines, etc will be very helpful in providing enhanced care. Based on their need, the Brown Medical School Sciences Library will provide training to the physicians and advance practice nurses in Internet based applications, including access to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed program and other products. Through a train-the-trainers model and in-house technical expertise, ongoing support and training will be provided to staff. Not only will the many clinicians benefit from Internet access, but more importantly, their patients will benefit from clinicians' access to the most up-to-date research, standards of care, and information on both common Western diseases and rarer tropical diseases sometimes presented by our many foreign-born patients.
