Christina Dinwoodie is a graduate student in the Master of Science in Public Policy and Management program at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management. She recently completed her undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. Christina spent the summer of 2005 in the Federated States of Micronesia, working with the hospital system through the Technology Consulting in the Global Community program led by Joe Mertz, Associate Director of TechBridgeWorld. She had a great time working on the islands of Yap and Pohnpei and also enjoyed the warm weather and the gorgeous snorkeling. She hopes to be able to continue doing work to assist health systems in developing countries.

"Virtual Community in Health Care:  Prospects in Peru" is a capstone project undertaken by a team of Masters of Public Policy and Management students at Carnegie Mellon's Heinz School.  TechBridgeWorld is launching a new public health initiative, learning what technologies could best assist with global public health challenges and exploring the creation of a virtual community for health care practitioners.  To assist with the initial stages of this new project, TechBridgeWorld has benefited from the policy expertise of this team of Master of Science in Public Policy and Management (MSPPM) students at Carnegie Mellon's Heinz School.  This group project was conducted as a collaboration between TechBridgeWorld and the Heinz School in fulfillment of the MSPPM Systems Synthesis Project requirement. 

A virtual community would provide unique opportunities to share best practices among peers in the public health field.  This group project aims to design a template to determine the feasibility of a virtual community for health care practitioners in developing communities.  The planned feasibility template will be composed of two parts:  the social network among potential participants and the IT-readiness of the community. 

As a case study, the students are exploring the feasibility of a virtual community composed of health professionals in Peru.  Their study focuses on reproductive health professionals including doctors, nurses and midwives as potential participants in this virtual community.  This project is being conducted with the assistance of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Peru's Department of Health.