[DDN] The Digital Divide and Human Health

[Taran Rampersad]

Good stuff, Layton. Some comments and queries:

Layton E. Olson wrote:
> Note Illinois rural healthnet project has been awarded 3 year FCC $21
> million grant for rural ICT infrastructure connections among hospitals,
> health institutions and clinics, and with potential for connection with
> urban areas, as part of over $400 million in national Universal Service
> commitments (from phone user fees) pilot program in many states
> announced last December.   
>   
$400 million could buy a lot of health anywhere in the world - that is 
certainly a lot to spend. It is a pilot program, though - what metrics 
are they using to assess whether the pilot project is a success? I ask 
because those metrics would certainly be useful for this discussion and 
others; such data would be worth it's weight in gold.
> The need now in all states is to generate matching funds to launch major
> ICT infrastructure efforts, including to provide fiber and wireless
> access to lower the costs of data intensive communications (e.g.
> radiology, cardiology, pediatrics, psychiatry) as well as to work with
> community health information outreach and health fair networks in
> underinvested areas.   Many state departments of aging and health
> services work in annual online November-December signups for Medicare
> prescription insurance programs, and many persons go to senior centers
> and health outreach programs for online signups for this complex
> process.
>   
Interesting - I keep forgetting that in some places of the world, health 
care and paying for health care are synonymous (when did that happen?).

I do believe that medical facilities should have better interconnections 
within themselves and without. When in Guyana in 2005, I was shocked to 
learn that a local hospital (St. Joseph Mercy) had been offered 
networking by IBM for $50,000 US equivalent - a ridiculous amount of 
Guyanese dollars (in the millions). I ordered some pizza and got some of 
the IT folk to help run the wire on a Saturday. This, of course, was not 
an official project done by a non-profit... instead, just some good 
people trying to improve things. Whether that network is in use now - I 
do not know (and somehow doubt it due to inertia).

But - are interconnections between medical facilities and within 
themselves... do they constitute a part of the digital divide? I think 
that they are, after some thought, and I think that the digital divide 
within and surrounding medical facilities is certainly something that 
should be explored more. If there is one place that I would say suffers 
a divide, it would be medical practitioners in the developing world... 
and if they don't have access - they who can interpret medical 
information and communicate it to their patients - well, that has a 
direct impact. As it is, any hypochondriac can find new and interesting 
things to go to their doctor with...

In the Caribbean, specifically Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago (where I 
have some contacts and experience), I do know that such divides exist. 
What is being done about them? I can't tell you anything concrete, but 
what I can tell you is that the inertia of staff and administration 
seems to pose more of a threat than an ebola outbreak...

-- 
Taran Rampersad
Presently in: San Fernando, Trinidad
cnd at knowprose.com

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