Week 2: Need Statement

Dear Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack:

My name is Dr. R. M. VonMatterhorn and I represent the Society of Rural Health (SRH), a 501 (c)3 non-profit group dedicated to the improvement of educational healthcare resources in the rural communities. Please find our recent grant proposal enclosed with this letter.

While the healthcare crisis is troubling to small town citizens and big city dwellers alike, we can agree that finding quality healthcare and primary care medical services in New York or Los Angeles is easier than in Frenchtown, Montana. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services agrees and noted in recent postings that rural residents tend to be in "poorer health" with fewer medical and healthcare-related resources. Generally accepted theories for such discrepancies include hospital closures, underdeveloped insurance coverage, and a shrinking supply of medical personnel. As a result, clinicians and rural medical facilities may have limited access to computers and, ultimately, new research data. This technological shortfall often translates into decreased CME activities, medical library resources, and up-to-date research outcomes.

One rational solution is to develop medical educational resources and databases that are specifically designed for the smaller screens of cellular phones, PDA Smart-phones, and net-books; which will inevitably level the intellectual playing field among healthcare workers. Ironically, despite limited funding for technology in some of these centers, most clinicians, and the general population for that matter, possess web-browsing cellular technology. In fact, as of late 2008 over 4 billion cell phone subscribers worldwide had collaboratively formed a virtually interconnected world. The widespread adoption of mobile technologies throughout all locational demographics is best illustrated in the 39% annual growth rate of cellular phone integration in Africa between 2005-2007. Hence, a modicum of hard-work and a minimal amount of funding could assist America's hardworking rural healthcare workers in caring for this country's rural patient population which traditionally consists of a larger elderly cohort.

The aforementioned solution is two-fold and consists of:

1.) developing a medical database that is maintained by volunteer urban-based resident physicians and

2.) posting the information, data, and medical studies to the Internet in a condensed mobile format that is easily accessible and implementable among technologically challenged rural facilities.

The SRH has already contacted, screened, and organized 52 resident physicians from 15 university-based urban medical centers and 4 computer science graduate students who have already committed to participating in this mission. Your approval, participation, and release of $250,000 of the USDA's Rural Development's Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant Program will help to improve the healthcare information utilized in the treatment of America's rural population.

Sincerely,

Dr. R. M. VonMatterhorn

{The SRH and Dr. VonMatterhorn are fictional; however, the remaining data and need are real.}