Phase 2:  1/01/01 - 7/31/01

With funding from the National Library of Medicine, the Regional Medical Library (RML) at the University of Washington will provide Internet connectivity assistance to a combination of four tribes in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, or Utah. 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 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 bring to address those needs.
• Work with the extended community to plan for the best Internet connectivity that can be maintained by the community once the 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.
• Work with each site to evaluate the impact of this project on tribal health.

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.

Arizona Participant

• Colorado River Indian Tribes

New Mexico Participants

• Pueblo of Jemez


• Taos Pueblo

Nevada Participant

• Shoshone-Paiute Tribes