VPnet Application Spotlight:

Inland Northwest Health Services supports NIC campaign

Inland Northwest Health Services showed its support for North Idaho College's role in helping to provide quality health care in the community by contributing to the NIC Providing Opportunities-Fulfilling Dreams Community Campaign.

The campaign was initiated in the summer of 2004 to raise support for technology and equipment in the new Meyer Health and Sciences Building and establish new student scholarships.

Inland Northwest Health Services, based in Spokane, contributed $243,000 to the campaign to fund and support the Meditech system for the NIC Nursing Department. The organization also committed to continued software maintenance and support of the system.

The Meditech system is an information system used for documentation of patient records. The system, which is used by all major hospitals in the North Idaho and Spokane area, is rapidly replacing paper systems of patient charts in health care facilities nationwide.

The electronic system allows health care providers to share information across the board, according to NIC Director of Health Professions and Nursing Lita Burns.

"The Meditech system is so widely used now that our nursing students must learn how to use the system," Burns said. "INHS' contribution has allowed us to add the Meditech system to our student learning environment at NIC, therefore decreasing the onsite training that institutions must perform with students."

The system is NIC's first application of the Virtual Possibilities Network, a collaborative broadband network that connects Inland Northwest higher education institutions with each other as well as with other educational-based organizations, healthcare organizations, research organizations and corporate partners. The Meditech system is connected to NIC through VPnet via a high-speed fiber package provided by Avista Corporation and Columbia Fiber Solutions.

North Idaho College nursing student Greg Sapp of Rathdrum demonstrates NIC’s application of the Meditech patient record system to INHS' Gary Smith, NIC President Michael Burke and INHS’ Tom Fritz and in the Meyer Health and Sciences Building.

VPnet Project Spotlight:

Gonzaga University - Hogan Entrepreneurial Leadership Program

2005-2006 Business Plan Competition Workshops

Gonzaga University, in collaboration with Eastern Washington University, Whitworth College, and Washington State University are helping students prepare for the upcoming 2005-2006 business plan competition. This is the largest business plan competition in the Inland Northwest, with $42,500 in prize money that will be awarded in Spring 2006.

Three workshops were conducted during November 2005 to assist students with writing a business plan, conducting market research using secondary data, and performing financial analysis.

The workshops were held at Gonzaga University, with live broadcasts across VPnet to students at WSU Pullman and Whitworth College. Leveraging video conference bridge services from INHS and the broadband network of VPnet, the live broadcasts are high quality, and provide a real-time, interactive experience for all of the students, regardless of their physical location. Rick Rasmussen, a member of the information technology team at Gonzaga said, "this is the best quality video conference I have ever experienced". His colleague, Dale DeViveiros, says "with a network like VPnet, it enables us to leverage video conferencing technologies in new ways for our institution".

In addition to the live video broadcasts, which saves travel time for students at WSU and Whitworth, the workshops were recorded and are accessible by students across the Internet in video streaming format. This capability is made possible by Spokane Public Schools, who has made their content archive facility available to VPnet members.