1997 Partnerships for Networked Consumer Health Information Conference

Summaries of Plenary Sessions and Breakout Sessions

Redefining Roles #2: Engines of Empowerment: Community-Based Networks

Wednesday, April 16, 1997
9:30-11:00 PM

Moderator: Nancy Milio, PhD, Professor of Health Policy and Administration, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina

Speaker: Barbara Hau, RN, MS, Clinical Coordinator, LaPlaza Telecommunity Foundation, "La Plaza Telecommunity - Diabetes Wellness Connection"

Speaker: Jerome McCarthy, Principal/Consultant, Fairhill & Company, "The Ideas of Community in the Reality of Information Culture"

Speaker: Mark Whittier, Director, Integrated Community Networks, Northern Telecom Limited, "Integrated Community Networks: The Promise of a Brighter Future"

Subject

Information technology has the potential to be a new way to assist disadvantaged communities to access mainstream resources for the development of their organizations and populations. Federal, state, and corporate information technology policy will affect how, and how well, community institutions can reach their goals, collaborate with service agencies, and effectively advocate for investing essential resources in their communities. The current focus of most professionals and businesses is institutional and content-and-provider-oriented. It should have wider scope to include community-based organizations (CBOs). The session explores the issues involved in the start-up and sustainability of projects to form inclusive, community-based networks.

Key Issues

• What organizational, financing, technical, and human resource problems face CBOs when they want to enter the electronic web?
• Where and how have CBOs found the necessary support resources to start-up and sustain their networks?
• What kinds of collaboration were involved to develop and provide ongoing support for their effort?

Roles, Responsibilities, and Priorities

Federal, state, and local governments have both direct and supporting roles and responsibilities in the development and sustainability of community-based networks. They can:

• take the initiative to link their own networks with organizations that either represent or are community-based;
• provide or finance network development in health, education, and other public or private service agencies on condition that the funds be used for collaborative development of the net with smaller CBOs;
• provide or finance the necessary planning, technical, and training support; and
• research and evaluate these issues.

Private profit and larger non-profit organizations should both share their in kind and program resources in collaboration with smaller CBOs and include them in their network planning and development. CBOs require strategic information and contacts; organizations can supply these kinds of resources, including conducting local inventories of network-supported groups and capacity-building needs; organizing a clearinghouse for developmental resources and available software and hardware, and convening and/or brokering arrangements among diverse parties to support and sustain inclusive network development.

CBOs should collectively make their needs known to larger public and private organizations and policymakers and argue for the mutual interest of all parties in building inclusive, productive, and healthier communities using information technologies as one means to that end.

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