The overall goal of this project is to expand delivery of health care services by providing secure Internet connectivity to obtain individualized health information, general health information, and transmit data. The District has several programs that provide services in locations outside the traditional clinic/hospital setting - Trouble Shooting for Health, the Trouble Shooters Immunization Program, the Health Education Outreach Program, and the Health Care for the Homeless Program. The majority of District Health Information Systems infrastructure - patient demographics, residence information, medical history, physician orders, and results from various ancillary systems such as Radiology, Pharmacy, and the Laboratory - is not available to these programs. The Health Care for the Homeless Program also provides services in three shelters (fixed remote sites) that have limited mainframe access and no internet connectivity. The other programs have laptop computers that operate m stand-alone mode with no access to either District information or the Internet. Internet access will enable outreach workers to directly access internet-based services such as the State Immunization Registry, The Texas Department of Health, and medical literature provided by the National Library of Medicine. This project will provide a secure path to HCHD Health Information Systems through a wireless internet connection and ISDN access. Both connections will have virtual private network (VPN) encryption for security to each end of the connection. This will allow outreach workers to record patient information in real time, quickly obtain healthcare information from the hospitals to complete services, and improve service delivery to our patients. This project will also enhance the District?s current program to provide web-browser access for its new Health Information Systems. There are two objectives or specific aims of this program: 1) Through secure internet connectivity for outreach health services, community members will experience a reduction in total hours from first encounter to obtaining health services access, and 2) Through secure internet connectivity, health outreach workers will be able to obtain real time individualized health information and supporting literature to provide immediate treatment, education, and referrals.
