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When musher Mike Williams and his dogs left downtown Anchorage on Saturday for the start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, he carried with him his perennial message of sobriety. For years, Williams, a popular musher, has inspired Alaskans with his declared "war on alcohol." This year, he took on one more cause. Williams will use the race to promote the Alaska Federal Health Care Access Network. In shorthand, it's called telehealth, a proposed link of 235 community health sites across the state. Backed by Congress, the four-year, $30 million project will enable the state's rural clinics to treat patients with the aid of specialists in larger venues, like Fairbanks and Anchorage. Williams will promote the project with logos, and he hopes to speak briefly with health aides in villages along the trail. In the past, patients in rural Alaska with needs beyond the capability of their local clinic often had to be flown to a nearby city to receive treatment. Yet there are many instances in which community health aides in the Bush can capture digital images of a patient's injury and forward pertinent information to an expert elsewhere, who can advise the health worker how to proceed. The cost of such communication is not as prohibitive or intrusive as having patients travel, say organizers. Naturally, there will still be many cases in which travel cannot be avoided. The project would link such remote locations as Metlakatla, Seldovia and St. Paul. Some health aides have already proved themselves adaptable to a networking system by using link-ups to get clarification and advice. The project, known as AFHCAN, is managed by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, which was established under the auspices of the Alaska Federal Healthcare Partnership, formed in 1996. The rural link-up is still in the planning stages, said spokesperson Asta Keller.
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