Winneshiek County Memorial Hospital is a public, nonprofit 83-bed acute care medical facility located in rural northeast Iowa. Winneshiek County Memorial Hospital's Rural Internet Connection Grant proposes to install gateway equipment to connect Winneshiek County Memorial Hospital?s (W.C.M.H.) existing ethernet local area network to the Internet in order to provide high-speed Internet access, and e-mail communications. Activities proposed in this grant have three clear goals: 1) Provide rural physicians, nurse practitioners, physicians assistants, pharmacists, nurses, allied health professionals, and managerial staff at W.C.M.H with high-speed access to Internet-based information and library services; 2) Establish a secure electronic mail services within the hospital, and improve and expand the availability of email communications with outside resources, such as tertiary care centers, state agencies, and other sources of medical information; and 3) Empower health professionals through training and education to incorporate state-of- the-art information technology into clinical information seeking behaviors, and to integrate Internet-based information and communication resources, such as NLM databases and email, into everyday medical practice in support of patient care In order to accomplish these goals, grant funds will be used not only to purchase and install gateway hardware and software, but to provide training classes and technical support to Internet users at the outset of the project and on an ongoing basis. The creation of an efficient enterprise-wide information system has been one of W.C.M.H.?s most longstanding strategic goals. W.C.M.H. is, therefore, committed to assuming all ongoing costs of managing the proposed Internet connection beyond the first project year.
