User:Fogcellist/WiRED International

WiRED International
WiRED International is a 501(3)(c) non-profit organization based in the U.S., whose mission  “is to provide medical and healthcare information, education and communications in developing and war-affected regions.”  WiRED provides equipment, coordination and contacts to bring health information to underdeveloped regions in 12 countries on four continents.WiRED has opened facilities in Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, El Salvador, Honduras, Iraq, Kenya, Kosovo, Montenegro, Nicaragua, Serbia and Sierra Leone. The organization serves some places so remote that solar panels are required to run computers.

In 2009, the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health awarded WiRED its Organizational Public Health Hero Award. The organization earned the award “for its achievements in using information technology to provide up-to-date health education and medical information in developing, post-conflict, and isolated regions of the world.”

History
A San Francisco State University professor, Gary Selnow founded WiRED in 1997 while on a Fulbright Fellowship as a visiting professor at the University of Zagreb in Croatia right after the Yugoslav War. “UNICEF had donated computers to a high school but they were just sitting in boxes. We connected them to the Internet.” In Kosovo after the bombing stopped, Dr. Selnow noted that physicians comprised “the largest group visiting the centers.”

In 1999, WiRED began focusing on bringing health information via computers and the Internet to underserved and war-torn areas of the world. WiRED brought Internet access to the Balkans and contributed to the educational and research features of the Kosovo Internet Access Initiative at the request of the U.S. Department of State. “By 2000, WiRED was in Kosovo, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania.” In 2001, WiRED, developed 19 Community Health Information Centers in Kenya with a developmental grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). WiRED also installed the first non-profit Internet Center in Leon, Nicaragua in collaboration with the Massachussetts-based Polus Center. In addition, WiRED opened seven centers in Montenegro and six in Bosnian schools and orphanages. Soon after the first American troops arrived in Iraq in 2003, WiRED techs installed e-libraries. Physicians used these centers to access current health information. Since then, WiRED has installed 39 centers in Iraq. The centers offer networked computers and CD-ROMs “of the latest journals, databases and tutorials compiled from universities, government, pharmaceutical companies and non-governmental organizations.”

Projects
WiRED works directly with local people to set up two main types of information centers:

Medical Information Centers (MICs) connect doctors and other healthcare professionals to current electronic medical information and to doctors and nurses who can provide instant consultations. Often located in hospitals or clinics, these centers supply:
 * Computers, Internet access, cameras for teleconferencing, and other technology
 * Medical curricula combined with the latest technologies
 * Collaboration with well-trained doctors in developed countries, including lectures, workshops, and clinical assessments

Community Health Information Centers (CHICs) provide people at the grassroots level—birth attendants, students, peer educators, traditional healers, disabled—with interactive computer-based tutorials and study material. In Africa, WiRED created a program to deliver interactive educational lessons in accessible formats. In some remote areas like Kisumu, Kenya, teens carry WiRED's battery-operated and programmed Pack 'N Go computers to isolated communities. Over a million Kenyans have seen and heard HIV/AIDS prevention messages in remote locations from WiRED’s programs. In addition to its MICs and CHICs, WiRED has used technology to connect people in other ways. For example, children seeking cancer treatment away from home have used WiRED’s “video visits” to talk to their families.

Programs
In collaboration with other telemedicine experts from medical, technology, research and non-profit organizations, WiRED International started The International Telemedicine Network (ITN) in 2008. The ITN is a consortium of 13 medical schools, teaching hospitals, research institutes, and non-profit organizations pooling resources to deliver medical education and information systems to the poorest countries in the world. The consortium will provide continuing medical education (CME) programs and patient consultations using Information Technology (IT) tools such as electronic libraries, digital video lectures, live seminars, and discussions. As coordinating member, WiRED arranges program funding and organizes operational elements for the ITN.