Landon Pediatric Foundation & RAIN
A Partnership for Community Wellness and TelemedicineThe Landon Pediatric Foundationand RAINare seeking to explore ideas that are concerned with the fundamental issues of social equity and justice as they relate to the use of information and information systems in promoting health and preventing disease, prolonging life, and maximizing the full individual human potentials of all of the members of our society. From our focus groups it is clear that the residents of public housing grasp the importance of the transition from the "agricultural age" to the "industrial age" to the "information age". It is also just as clear that they feel they are intended to be left behind.
With our partners in the USDA, schools, Healthy Start sites, medical clinics, and libraries it is our goal to implement and evaluate the effective dissemination of information and information systems to families below the federal poverty line without college educations. Our focus will be on maximizing the abilities of the users to find information, with special emphasis on promoting health and preventing disease.
It is still too early to tell whether our networks will be sustainable after Federal grant funding ends. For us, it will be a struggle to increase utilization for both clinical and nonclinical uses to a point where their local facilities can justify the expense of maintaining the networks.