The announcement on the opening of the Toronto FreeNet has generated a
lot of interesting information in my mail box. Six notices were sent out
on Saturday night, one to CANCHID. At this time (Tuesday evening) the
mail box has received approximately 750 replies from every corner of the
globe and from every sector and strata in society ranging from miners in
Australia, university presidents in Belize and Mayors in American cities.
On the posting to CANCHID I added that it would be a free and democratic
venue for access to health information. On the posting to the distance
education network I stressed its use in public and distance education. I
have enjoyed reading the responses - many of they quite moving. I also
am amused to report that of the 4 quite pointed postings that came to my
on mail box, asking where the scam was and who was going to trick who,
- as well as one with more polite questions - all were from the health
care sector. Wonder if it says something about the health care sector.
I have received 50 or so messages to the mail box from health care people
using the FreeNets in the rest of Canada and the U.S. and they have great
things to say about how access to the FreeNets have made them better
professionals, given them access to better information, etc. They could
better tell the health sector skeptics what community electronic networks
mean for health and wellness.
I will respond to two of the pointed questions, in brief form. The real
replies will come from watching what the FreeNets achieve. There is a lot
of information out there on FreeNets and those lucky enough to have a full
internet account and reading this can search the internet using gophers
WWW, FTP, etc and learn all they want to know. They are community controlled
non-profit operations, each locally incorporated and controlled. They do
pay for their supplies (phone lines, etc.) depend on hundreds of hours of
free volunteer time (from highly skilled volunteers) but they do not pay
anything to a central organization, etc. They have elected boards (once
the network is up and running and has "members". They are more community
and more free than the public libraries but may end up much like public
libraries in terms of their position in society and the community. Most of
us believe that they are essential to a free and democratic society.
What do they have to do with health? Elsewhere there are extensive health
conferences (on-line) and health information resources. Material on Drugs,
AIDS, Tobacco, etc. In my capacity I am thinking about placing the entire
CancerNet database on line. It is about 8 meg of files for the patient,
the patient's family, care givers, doctors, etc. My only hesitation at
this point is that the treatment guidelines are those of the U.S. since the
CancerNet database is produced by NIC in Washington. I fear a lot of flack
from Canadian health care providers who should be more concerned with
producing Canadian information sources on-line and free. CancerNet is
available from one source in the Canadian west and those of you with an
internet account have access to it. I want the world to have access to the
database and the CancerNet people are willing (eager) to agree to that. I
plan not to just mount it but to raise it as an issue, on the FreeNet it-
self and let the users tell me what to do. I hope it will prompt others
to feed health information to the Community Network.
There are other providers working on information provision schemes. It is
clear that within a very few years public electronic networks will be an
important source of information for health and wellness. I hope that the
readers of CANCHID and health care professionals everywhere look at what
it is they can do to put usable health information into the virtual community
workspace we call the Free-Nets. - Sam Lanfranco, CANCHID ListManager,
A proud member of the Toronto Free-Net
[log in to unmask] Board of Directors, and looking forward
to the first public Board election in
a year where, who knows, I might lose
my seat on the board to another citizen.
|
