School-based telemedicine: teachers', nurses' and administrators' perceptions.
In 1997, a telemedicine project began in Kansas which brought health-care directly into elementary schools using interactive video-links. The project initially involved four schools, but was expanded to cover 10 schools, including two middle and one high school. We examined the organizational issues related to telemedicine links to schools. Specific attention was paid to the perceptions of the nurses, teachers and key administrators. The research involved analysing archive data and interviewing participants in the project from the schools and the medical centre. The results showed the difficulties in delivering health-care, especially by telemedicine, to under-served urban children. However, the data also revealed that these can be overcome. Once they had experienced it at first hand, almost all concerned began to see telemedicine as an effective and important asset to the delivery of health-care.
Whitten
P
P
Michigan State University, East Lansing 48824-1212, USA. pwhitten@msu.edu
Cook
D
D
Kingsley
C
C
Swirczynski
D
D
Doolittle
G
G
D000288:Administrative Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D010465:Perception; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012572:School Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012573:School Nursing; D013663:Teaching; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D019037:Urban Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration