Ohio Valley Community Health Information Network: design considerations

Abstract

The Ohio Valley Comnnunity Health Infomation Network (OVCHIN) is a community-bused, consumerdejined grunt program to determine the eflcucy of delivering health information to the Turd residents qf southem Ohio and to (the urban and suburban communities in the Greater Cincinnati tn-state region. The OVCHIN is a colluboratively-developed and publicly and privately funded demonstration project. Consumer health information delivery is via ISDN, stundard dial, dedicated network connections, and the Internet. TriStute Online (Greater Cincinnati's Free-Net) and other southern Ohio Free-Nets are key access points in the larger project communities. The other access points me 40 workstations distributed in public sites throughout the grant's primary geographical target area Determining community needy and interest, Building political alliances, finding and developing .funding sources, and overcoming technical obstacles MZ? discussed. Design strengths, limitations, und technicul opportunities are the priwury foci of this puper. OVCHIMs Internet address i:r: http://www.ovchin.uc.edu