Intel Corp yesterday unveiled a plan to improve healthcare in 105 clinics and hospitals in rural parts of Zhanjiang over the next two years.

Working with the Ministry of Health, the municipal government of Zhanjiang and several domestic technology companies, Intel will help provide computers, telemedicine equipment and Internet access to the city's rural hospitals and clinics.

The new technology is designed to make the hospitals and clinics accessible to real-time video and help staff create digital health records.

The plan is a key part of the firm's contribution to China's "New Countryside Initiative," under which it will help promote IT in rural areas.

"How to better inform, educate and care for people living in rural areas is one of the major challenges faced by any government," said Intel Chairman Craig Barrett, who is currently visiting China, yesterday. "Intel is working with China to overcome the challenge."

He said Intel will also support the provincial government of Guangdong in establishing 300 rural community computing service centers, which will be equipped with computers with reliable, high-speed Internet connections by the end of this year.

The centers are designed to enable rural people to access vast medical, educational and commercial information resources.

Intel plans to spend 30 million U.S. dollars on the initiative, not only setting up community computing service centers, but also developing computers tailor-made for rural areas and training rural people in how to use them.

"No one company, no one government, can do this work alone. We are here to demonstrate what can be done with the application of IT in rural areas," said Barrett. "We will be able to take the method and duplicate it anywhere in China as well as globally."

He said Intel would carry out the initiative in 1,000 villages in five provinces over the next three years.

Praising Intel's efforts, Zhanjiang Mayor Chen Yaoguang, said the programme to digitalize rural areas in Zhanjiang would create economic opportunities for rural people, as well as improving their healthcare and living standards.

"They will have many more opportunities for business, for education and for the future," the mayor said.

"The application of IT in the healthcare system is very beneficial for the rural population," Zhang Jimei, a doctor with a local hospital in Zhanjiang, told China Daily.

"Critically ill patients will be able to be diagnosed by medical specialists hundreds of kilometres away and ambulances will upload vital medical histories as they rush patients to urban hospitals," said the doctor.

Zhanjiang farmer Huang Huaping said computers are already changing the way he lives and supports his family.

Thanks to computers and Internet access, the farmer said, he expects his crop sales to rise by 50 percent this year, as his income climbs 30 percent.

(China Daily October 31, 2006)