Phase 1:  1/01/99 - 12/31/00

With special funding from the National Library of Medicine, the Regional Medical Library (RML) at the University of Washington will provide assistance to 16 tribes and Native villages in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington, in connecting to the Internet. The aim of this connectivity is to provide access to health information, thus minimizing isolation and improving access to remote social and health resources.

Many agencies, programs, schools, and departments on reservations and in Native villages have a stake in the health of the community. We will work with these groups to plan Internet connectivity that leverages tribal resources and delivers optimal benefit from Internet information resources and communication within the community.

In pursuit of this, our project staff seeks to:

• Establish an alliance with community leaders in health care, social services, and/or computer systems and agree on goals and objectives.
• Encourage the participation of other tribal groups that have an interest in health information. Such groups might be health and human services departments, K-12 schools, a tribal college, an IHS clinic, a tribal clinic, environmental scientists, social service agencies, etc.
• Work with community leaders to identify priority health information needs and identify the resources that the community can to address those needs.
• Work with the extended community to plan for the best Internet connectivity that can be maintained by the community once project seed funding is spent.
• Acquire and help install computer and network equipment
• Provide a toll-free telephone access help desk.
• Fund Internet connectivity for the duration of the project
• Provide training in effective retrieval and quality assessment of health information resources.
• Encourage and facilitate tribal/village groups to add their own knowledge and experience to Web sites, to enable communication and sharing with other tribes or villages.
• It is also hoped that the Tribal Connections Project will serve as a test implementation site for the evaluation methodology resulting from The Outreach Evaluation Project which also is being conducted by the RML.

Other agencies are supporting similar or related projects and we intend to dovetail with those efforts wherever possible. We have organized an Advisory Panel, with broad representation, including American Indian/Alaska Native health professionals, experts in information and communication technologies for American Indian communities, representatives of Indian Health Boards, and experts in community development. The advisory panel will provide guidance to ensure equitable distribution of project resources and rational selection of participant sites, and to assist in reviewing criteria, plans, and project implementation and evaluation.

Roy Sahali, Project Manager, will provide information and assistance to the applicants in the proposal process and during implementation.

Alaska Participants

• Arctic Slope Native Association - North Slope Inupiaq [Inupiat] Health Net, Barrow
• Norton Sound Health Corporation - Village Connections Project, Nome
• South East Alaska Regional Health Consortium - SEARHC Internet Connectivity Project, Juneau
• Toksook Bay - Telemedicine and Community Access in a Rural Alaskan Eskimo Community, Toksook Bay

Idaho Participant:

• Nez Perce Tribe - Ne Mee Poo Health Connections Project, Lapwai

Montana Participants:

• Fort Belknap Agency, Assiniboine and Gros Ventre, Harlem
• Fort Peck Tribes - Assiniboine and Sioux, Poplar

Oregon Participant:

• Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Pendleton

Washington Participants:

• Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe - A Healthy Connected Community, Port Angeles
• Lummi Nation - Lummi family LIFE Center Project, Bellingham
• Nisqually Indian Tribe - Tribal Connections Project, Nisqually
• Port Madison Indian Reservation, Suquamish Electronic Village Project, Suquamish
• Samish Indian Nation - Samish Tribal Telecommunications Project, Anacortes
• Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe - Tribal Connections Project, Darrington
• Spokane Indian Reservation, Spokane Tribe of Indians Health Connection, Wellpinit
• Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians - Tribal Connections Project, Arlington