The AIHA works in collaboration with its CEE and NIS partners to establish a telecentre (LRC) within each partnership institution. LRCs consist of at least one computer with Internet access, a scanner that allows partners to digitise clinical images for use in teleconsultations, and a collection of health and medical databases. AIHA's approach is grounded in the belief that partners must be prepared to commit their own resources to the two- to three-year project, which is set up in five phases.

Each LRC is managed by an information coordinator from the institution who is responsible for helping his or her colleagues begin integrally using information and communication in day-to-day practice. The LRCs are designed to give health professionals access at the point of care and thereby to make information use more convenient. A series of training workshops, held every 6-12 months, gradually introduces a range of skills and themes that helps information coordinators and their colleagues appreciate the value of, and learn how to access, current medical information and research. These training workshops, which may be conducted in formal small-group sessions or one-on-one, evolve from basic instruction on how to use the Internet, how to create Web pages, and medical searching techniques to the use of advanced Internet applications, methods for critically evaluating information resources, and database design.

In addition to this training, the coordinator provides outreach and information support to personnel, patients, and members of the local community. The information coordinator and other LRC staff also work with colleagues to conduct periodic literature reviews that are designed to facilitate the evaluation of current standards of practice, preventive health services, and health promotion or education. The goal of the LRC project is not, however, merely to create a complement to a medical or health sciences library. The LRCs offer opportunities for education, communication, and collaboration within the AIHA partnership network, as well as with the international health community. In fact, partnership sustainability is a central strategy. The organisers hope that each partnering institution will tailor the LRCs to fit the needs of the particular institution. The LRC is intended as a starting point through which partners can begin working more closely together on exploring methods of distance learning.

Here are a few examples of activities conducted at particular LRCs:

Development Issues

Technology, Health.

Since 1992, AIHA has been encouraging the exchange of knowledge, experience, and information among its CEE/NIS health care partnerships not only by providing opportunities for trip exchanges, conferences, and regional seminars, but also by promoting the effective use of available technologies. The LRC project builds on these efforts.

AIHA and its partners have established 140 LRCs. These centres collectively provide services to a community of more than 70,000 medical professionals across the NIS and CEE. In addition to meeting the research needs of partner institutions, LRCs also provide information support to more than 25,000 other healthcare providers and community members each year, including approximately 3,500 patients and members of the general public. Information coordinators have trained nearly 11,000 healthcare professionals in the use of computers and the Internet as tools of evidence-based research and have responded to nearly 30,000 requests for information from clinicians and patients.

Developed by LRC staff, the Web server of Odessa Oblast Hospital, which includes an online drug index as well as several online medical journals, was named one of the 20 most visited Russian-language medical sites by the Russian Medical Server.