INTERNET ACCESS FOR MONROE COUNTY HEALTH DEPT. CD CLINIC

Monroe County Department Of Human Svc, Rochester NY

Investigators

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (adapted from the Abstract): The objective of this application is to extend Internet access to the Communicable Disease Control Clinics, and to the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program, which are located in two separate facilities from the rest of the Monroe County Health Department (MCHD). The Clinics staff of 25 nurses, 5 nurse practitioners, 3 outreach workers, 7 clerks and 1 physician see about 40 clients each day. The WIC staff of 5 nutritionists, 8 clerks and 1 outreach worker see about 120 clients each day. Clients and the staffs will benefit from the opportunity to access health information and to support staffs medically related analyses. The staffs will also contribute to the pool of knowledge by exchanging correspondence, data and documents with colleagues worldwide. Each staff currently accesses a local area network (LAN), which is prepared for ready connection to the Internet. Funds from this grant will be used to create fiber connections from the Clinics and WIC facilities to Monroe County?s existing Wide Area Network, which is attached to the public Internet via an existing Cisco Pix Firewall. This created connection will consist of a Cabletron Ethernet Smartswitch with ATM OC/3 uplinks for each facility into an existing ATM switch located 2 miles away. Funds will also be used for the construction of the physical fiber cable plant from the ATM switch to the Clinics and MC facilities, the conduit, external fiber bundle and the fiber termination equipment. The MCHD is committed to paying all expenses beyond what is allowable under this grant offering, including upgrading personal computers, application and communications servers, and construction costs. In order to promote optimal use of Internet resources, each employee will receive basic training and advanced training as required. Furthermore, a document will be prepared to be available to clients explaining how they can use the Internet access at the clinic or WIC to look at, or copy, health related information. MCHD is prepared to assume all costs of training and maintaining the Internet connection beyond the project year.