Information technology and health care partnerships: training medical professionals in central and eastern Europe and the New Independent States

Abstract

The American International Health Alliance (AIHA), a not-for-profit health care organization founded in 1992 and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), uses Internet technology and computer-mediated communication to foster and enhance partnerships between United States hospitals and medical institutions in Central Eastern Europe (CEE) and the New Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union. As a way to sustain these partnerships, the AIHA instituted the Learning Resource Center (LRC) project, a program that provides information technology, in the form of hardware, software, and training, in order to educate CEE and NIS medical personnel about information technology and its usefulness in their medical practices. Everett Rogers's theory of the diffusion of innovations (E. Rogers, 1995) provides a useful tool for assessing the LRC project's success in supporting the partnerships by looking at the criteria of advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. In addition, Rogers's theory reveals the difficult intercultural issues raised by such a project, issues such as the differences in the levels of socio-economic infrastructure in CEE and NIS and the exportation of American values and culture that are inherent in the LRC project goals and in the information technology itself.