Internet Library Outreach Service Project

South Carolina State Dept Of Mental Hlth, Columbia SC

Investigators

Abstract

The South Carolina Department of Mental Health (SCDMH) is a state agency located in Columbia, the capital city of South Carolina. The agency operates and maintains seven mental health hospitals, 17 community mental health centers, 63 mental health clinics, and specialty offices statewide. South Carolina Department of Mental Health's Internet Library Outreach Services Grant proposes to install equipment to upgrade the Point-to-Point connections to Frame Relay of rural community mental health clinics in order to provide high-speed access to SCDMH's existing Ethernet Enterprise Network. Activities proposed in this grant have three clear goals: 1. Provide physicians, clinicians, nurses, managers, and support staff at SCDMH?s remote clinics with access to the SCDMH Wide-Area-Network (WAN), thus providing high-speed access to Internet-based information and medical library resources. 2. Empower health professionals, through training and education on Internet usage and library applications, such as Winnebago Spectrum 4, a suite of Internet tools for connecting to inline resources, to integrate state-of-the-art information technology into clinical information seeking behaviors and into everyday medical practice in support of patient care. 3. Provide consumers who receive services at mental health centers and clinics located in rural counties access to Internet-based information. In order to accomplish these goals, grant funds will be used to purchase and install hardware and software, and to provide access to library resources through Internet-based applications. The availability of a state-of-the-art Internet-based library circulation catalog program, available to statewide mental health staff has been a longstanding strategic goal. SCDMH is, therefore, committed to assuming all ongoing cost of managing the proposed network connections beyond the first project year.