Colleagues In Care Haiti is Team a nonprofit, working to build a medical knowledge database and volunteer network to develop practice models for replication in regions facing limited resources. CIC applies a tried-and-true technology solution to a real-world social problem: poor medical care in Haiti. Its innovation lies not just with the tools and techniques employed, but the way in which these strategies are rolled out. It presents a model of efficiency and effectiveness for any non-profit organization grappling with similar challenges - namely, a globally dispersed membership base and the need to share lifesaving information and knowledge with those who need it most.
The network relies heavily on collaboration among existing entities. It hinges upon tapping into the global brainpower of 200 doctors, nurses, and business professionals. Every "node" or peer network is a valuable resource providing knowledge about treatment options, clinical pathways, and best practices - information that saves lives.
CIC focuses on Haiti, a resource-challenged area rocked by natural disasters crippling the country’s citizens. Prior to the 2010 earthquake, healthcare programs were already poorly staffed with limited resources.haiti medical According to the 2009 World Health Organization statistics, Haiti had one nurse and three doctors for every 10K people. Infant and maternal mortality, hypertension and stroke, and life threatening illnesses were among the highest in the world.
Leveraging Technology
Today, CIC is using the IBM SmartCloud for Social Business to virtually connect medical workers and volunteers around the globe. Using the CIC Social Collaboration Model, volunteers and those on the front lines taking care of patients can be armed with an online medical knowledge system that includes treatment options, clinical pathways and best practices specific to Haiti’s situation.
For example, in a fully developed system, Haitian healthcare providers would have immediate access to information critical to the management of their patient that CIC and partnering healthcare education and training organizations in SmartCloud Communities have co-developed with their Haitian colleagues
Haiti faces numerous challenges that include: poor public health sector infrastructure; inadequate number of trained health care providers; lack of clean, potable water impacting the health sanitation needs of densely-populated tent cities; malnutrition and food insecurity; and infectious diseases including diarrheal illness, HIV, TB, and malaria.
The immense challenge requires a new and integrated response.
CIC’s Global Health Collaboration Network connects the best medical minds and institutions to share information and to work together to create quality, evidence-based standards of care adapted for the realities confronting Haiti and other regions challenged by poverty and resource limitations.
The CIC Model works through communication enhanced collaboration, leading to true transcultural co-operation as the foundational building blocks of a healthy community built by a broad coalition of colleagues who care.
