- Hospitals across the nation increasingly face pressure to reduce costs, while
simultaneously improving the quality of patient care. The Avera McKennan Hospital
and University Health Center, was formed in December 1993 to provide clinical
consultations, via videoconferencing, for patients and physicians across South
Dakota. The TeleHealth Network uses Polycom videoconferencing technology
to treat patients in the clinical areas of psychology, pulminology, internal medicine,
obstetrics ultrasound, emergency medicine, dermatology, infectious diseases, and
oncology - http://www.collaborate-mag.com (Collaborate Newsline, vol. 1 no 10,
23 Oct 02)

- Researchers at Stanford University say that an experiment they conducted validates
the usefulness of distributed computing in real-world, laboratory problems and that
their results are the first to be published. The Stanford experiment compared data
returned from calculations done by 200,000 distributed computers to results from
laboratory tests. The calculations, designed to predict the folding of molecules, did
not produce new information but corroborated results obtained from physical tests
on those molecules. This suggests that complex calculations, performed in a
distributed computing project, can accurately predict physical behavior. The
research is published in "Nature" -
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-963024.html (ZDNet, 23 Oct 02)

- The Board of Trustees of the Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) of Mississippi,
representing six state universities, has signed a deal with e-education vendor SCT Inc.
to consolidate six separate contracts for product maintenance and services. Under the
agreement, IHL will be a central point of contact for distributing SCT services to the
six schools. The services include product enhancements for the schools' SCT
banner applications. The IHL's main purpose is to administer a shared vision
through the value and services that can be provided for the Mississippi institutions -
http://www.ihl.state.ms.us.

- The Gale Group has announced that much of its reference material will be made
available online through netLibrary. Libraries with netLibrary accounts will have
access to selected Gale content, including publishing imprints such as Macmillan
Reference USA, Charles Scribner's Sons, Thorndike Press, Wheeler Publishing,
and the Taft Group. Initial offerings will include titles that do not already have a
CD-ROM or Web version. The Gale content would use the standard formatting and
features offered by netLibrary, including full-text searches across multiple titles,
but individual titles would have no special customization. (Information Today,
30 Sept 02)