Copper Queen Community Hospital is a small, not-for-profit acute care rural hospital in southeastern Arizona, near the Mexican Border. Patient care needs are given priority in a system strained by dwindling reimbursement rates and unreimbursed services provided to citizens of a financially depressed area, and non-citizens who become ill or injured migrating through our terrain. CQCH is a member of a CAP grant funded group of rural healthcare providers called Eastern Cochise Safety-Net Alliance. This partnership addresses the need to expand access to care and enhance coordination of care. To optimize care in this rural area, all group's medical personnel need the ability to access resources; therefore CQCH proposes that the NLM grant also provide this opportunity to the six ECSA sites in Elfrida, Douglas, Sierra Vista and Bisbee. Only recently has this group been able to afford new, updated technology, through the CAP grant. They are now positioned to improve the quality of patient care by bringing Internet accessibility and digital library resources to the caregivers in its system, affording them access to additional knowledge. The need for healthcare resources that can be accessed in real time cannot be overemphasized. An example of this concept is as follows: A local physician sees a patient who has moved here from Elfrida and has a particular indwelling catheters that needs to be flushed. The hospital has staff and equipment available, but knowledge of that particular device may be lacking. An online pictorial description of the device, with manufacturer's instructions would help the staff perform the procedure more competently. Frequently patients, especially in the ER, or Home Health program come to us with the latest in technology obtained at the nearest tertiary care center, 125 miles away. There is an expectation that we will care for them locally and we need access to a knowledge base in order to do this well. There is a need for practitioners to remain current in their field. Access to professional information via Internet would fill this need.
