For instance, Angeline Bushy notes the availability of peer support, consultation services, and educational courses via electronic media to rural service providers. She cites collaborative efforts between educational institutions and health care agencies made possible by the new technology. As described by Paul Higbee and Ernest Bantam, the Black Hills Careers Academy in South Dakota, a school for rural youth whose lives have been disrupted by substance abuse, encourages students to use the Internet to broaden their view of who they are and to explore potential careers. Kathryn Puskar and her colleagues describe a system in which rural school personnel could transmit data to a university computer for analysis. In these rapidly changing times of health care reform, and the adjustments that Federal, State, county, and local jurisdictions are making in their delivery of substance abuse services, exploring new ways of communicating about and delivering AOD care makes a great deal of sense.
Telecommunications technologies are one avenue for exploration.
The papers presented here offer other avenues for thoughtful exploration of techniques that may be useful to communities searching for approaches to the problems associated with AOD use. Working in partnership together, we believe that we will successfully address the complex problems that we face.