Dear CLICK4HP Subscribers,

You will have noticed the request for medical assistance from
China [log in to unmask] in the August 27th CLICK4HP postings.
Since CLICK4HP is not a clinical list the posting has been
forwarded to the editor of TROPMED which we also run at York
University. TROPMED is a close list administered by the American
Committee on Clinical Tropical Medicine and Traveller Health
(ACCTMTH) and was written up in the August (96) issue of the
U.S. edition of the Readers Digest, with reference to saving
the life of a young Chinese woman in Beijing a year ago.

The whole area of consultations over the internet is quite
complex. What is certain is that the demand for such services
will grow rapidly over the next little while. There is no way
that a medical school training, or traditional information
search techniques can fill the 'just-in-time' learning role
that information and communication technologies (ICT) can
through their provision of an electronic venue to serve as
a wide-area consultation platform.

Much needs to be sorted out in this area. CLICK4HP had a recent
posting on how the internet is being developed so that clients
and patients can be informed of the 'track record' for "bad
doctors". When the original Beijing consultation took place we
worried about how many Chinese (and other) doctors would resort
to TROPMED, or its newer companion TRAVELMED, for advice.

Many of us are working to develop virtual infrastructure in these
areas, and train the players in notions of 'zone coverage' so that
-for example- China and the Canadian north develop their own capacities
to service such requests without a dependence on 'elite' information
services out of metropolitan centres.

In the spirit of CLICK4HP I hope that we all treat requests such at
the recent one from China as a chance to reflect on where we should
be going with these virtual territories.

- Sam Lanfranco, one-third of CLICK4HP facilitation cohort -
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