Electric avenues: telecommunications reform breaks down old barriers and creates new opportunities - Telecommunications Act of 1996

Entrepreneur, June, 1996 by Cynthia E. Griffin

According to Alan Bain, assistant headmaster for school development, the network was installed with the help of a small business, and Brewster initially received training from outside experts on using the Internet, e-mail and an authoring system for developing computer-based instructional materials.

But Bain suggests an entrepreneur go beyond the basics of Internet training. "I think there will be a high demand related to how a [computer] network fits into the bigger picture of a school's curriculum and how to train people to use the Internet in a meaningful, educational context," he says. "There seem to be a lot of people offering workshops on how to run applications, but I think there's a great opportunity [for entrepreneurs] to show how computers and the Internet can be embedded in the context of a curriculum. "

Bain also believes helping schools establish Intranets (mini in-school Internets) is another potential entrepreneurial venture. But remember, he adds, that while initially a school will contract with a vendor to teach them to use the Internet, create home pages and other such skills, "most people want transferable skills so they can do it themselves."

* HEALTHY OUTLOOK

The implications for how the telecommunications act will impact the medical field are still evolving. But a number of government, private and university medical facilities around the country are exploring their options. Jeffrey Dunbar, administrator of the Health Communications Project at Atlanta's Emory University Robert W. Woodruff Health Science Center, sees great opportunities for entrepreneurs in telemedicine, particularly when it comes to creating software to help medical facilities interface with the Internet and creating home pages and other Web-related activities.

"Within the next two to four years, I think you will see a basic rolling out [of technology use in medicine]," Dunbar says. This, he believes, could pave the way for companies to help hospitals, doctors, clinic operators, home health-care agencies and others bring their operations online, such as by setting them up on a local area network so they can quickly share patient information or by hooking them up to the Internet.

This could include working as consultants to help medical personnel understand how technology can be integrated into their work Third-party management Of telemedicine operations presents a bigopportunity for medical management companies, says Daniel Valentino, director of Imaging and Information Services at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). That's what this West Coast university is doing in Melbourne, Florida, where 24,000-employee Harris Corp. sends its employees in need of health-care services to a center managed by an entrepreneurial firm. Images, such as X-rays, CT scans and ultrasound photos, taken at the center are I transmitted via trunk lines back to computers at UCLA and read there. Valentino suggests the same kind of system can be set up by entrepreneurs on a smaller scale in rural I communities.