Since the Webhealth internet kiosk was installed at Bayfair during July, I've wondered how many people in our community don't have internet access.
Are they able to find health or social services for issues in their lives? Are we successfully providing them with an anonymous place where they can find help?
Anyone using the kiosk remains anonymous, but it's possible to generally see what pages are visited and what keywords people are searching for by looking at the website statistics.
Tuesdays and Thursdays seem to be the busiest days, with early afternoons being the busiest times. More than 250 people used the kiosk during the last 10 days of July, looking for information on GPs, disabilities, suicide support groups, employment assistance, counselling, family, financial advice, abuse, alcohol and even someone looking for a dinosaur!
The top six organisations who had their contact details viewed over the last month were Achieve Health & Education Consultants Ltd, Adoption Information, Tauranga Budget Advisory Service, Bay of Plenty Therapy Foundation Inc, The Salvation Army, and the Suicide Support Group. The kiosk has a new feature whereby the public can have the contact details of any organization texted to their mobile phone directly from the kiosk.
The Kaupapa Maori directory is the most often accessed directory, with people using the ‘Find a Health and Social Service' feature, reading articles on wellbeing and using the Community Noticeboard to catch up on what's happening in the community.
The kiosk is located in a high foot traffic part of Bayfair, was funded by BayTrust and First Sovereign Trust, and the website www.bop.webhealth.co.nz funded by the Bay of Plenty District Health Board.
Webhealth is all about growing strong connected communities and linking people to wellbeing.
For more information go to www.webhealth.co.nz – your link to wellbeing.
Rosalie Crawford is a medical scientist and lecturer who works for Webhealth Linkage Trust. Email: rosalie@webhealth.co.nz website: www.webhealth.co.nz phone 0800 WEBHEALTH, Skype: Guavablue, Twitter: WebhealthBOP