University students build online health portal for the region
Students
at the University of Maine at Presque Isle gained important hands-on
experience building a website that will serve as a health care resource for the
region thanks to a partnership with the University of New England
and The Aroostook Medical Center.
A small group of students in the University's Management
Information System program built the website www.aroostookhealth.org from the
ground up in the last year to serve as a "health services portal" for the local
community.
"This
website is fulfilling a need in the County that will allow the general public
to see what's out there for health care providers and services," JoAnne
Wallingford, Associate Professor of Business/MIS, said. "With the new health
portal, anyone can find out, for example, the dentists available in our area,
or learn about a wide range of health care topics - such as chronic conditions
or death and dying - and the resources available here and across the state."
Wallingford, who has had a
number of her classes tackle web page design for local organizations over the
years, learned about the local health portal project from Gary Cattabriga, the
director of technology computing at UNE's Center for Health Policy, Planning
and Research.
"I
knew this was a great opportunity for MIS students to work on something real," Wallingford said. "Gary worked with us as if
he was our customer and we were doing a job for him. It was an excellent
experience for our students."
"I'd
never done this before, so it was really exciting," MIS student Thuy Phan said.
"It was a wonderful experience and I would recommend it to any student who's
interested in learning more about implementing a website."
Students
worked from 4 to 6 hours per week on the project, collaborating with Cattabriga
on the "look and feel" of the website and inputting the content provided by him
and other local partners, such as The Aroostook Medical Center. The health
portal, now up and available for use, has more than 200 web pages that include
a wide array of health care resources.
While the website is complete, the University's MIS
students will continue to have a hand in keeping the content up to date.