Connecting Sichuan
While post-earthquake news reports focused on the immediate need for shelter, healthcare, and food, a future infrastructure threat loomed.
The destruction of hundreds of hospitals and clinics strained an already overburdened healthcare system, and dozens of rural schools were isolated. Revitalization would require a deep, long-term commitment to stabilizing the region’s technological capacities.
Cisco invested US$50 million over three years to:
- Use network technology to give rural patients and healthcare providers easier, more affordable access to urban doctors and facilities
- Improve the quality of education for children in rural communities hardest hit by the earthquake
- Transform Sichuan Province schools into models for 21st-century, digitally-enabled education.
- Train a new generation of professionals to design, build, and secure computer networks so they can support local industries.
The earthquake destroyed hundreds of hospitals and clinics, straining an already overburdened healthcare system.
In one of its biggest public-private partnerships ever, Cisco worked with more than 200 organizations to revitalize healthcare, education, and the workforce in Sichuan Province following the 2008 earthquake. Cisco’s Connecting Sichuan partners included:
- 10 Chinese and U.S. government agencies
- 32 business, non-governmental, and private sector partners
- 66 healthcare sites
- 102 education sites
- 25 Networking Academy sites
- Cisco Foundation
- Cisco employees
Through its Networking Academy program, Cisco helped train a new generation of professionals to design, build, and secure computer networks.
Cisco contributed various technology solutions for Connecting Sichuan:
- Cisco TelePresence solution allows healthcare professionals to interact and examine patients remotely.
- Data center technology supports 60 million medical insurance records and more than 400,000 electronic health records.
- Regional education clouds connect schools with each other and with centralized resources.
- Regional healthcare clouds and telehealth networks link rural villages to full-service hospitals and Department of Health resources across Sichuan.
- Virtual education broadcast centers allow rural students to learn new subjects from expert teachers in urban centers during virtual classes.
Rural patients in Sichuan Province now have easier, more affordable access to urban doctors and facilities through Cisco TelePresence.
Connecting Sichuan has helped improve access to quality healthcare and education for tens of thousands of people in previously hard-to-reach parts of Sichuan Province. Seven thousand healthcare practitioners use facilities equipped with Cisco technologies.
By applying its expertise in networking technology and public-private partnerships, Cisco helped build models of healthcare and education that could be replicated throughout China and beyond.
In 2011 Cisco and Peking University jointly released Transforming Healthcare through Collaboration, a report that details features of the Cisco Connecting Sichuan healthcare program and its relevance as a model for China's healthcare reform.
Cisco has received numerous awards for the Connecting Sichuan program, including the 2011 Outstanding Contribution Award for Corprorate Social Responsibility by the China Ministry of Education and the 2011 Outstanding CSR Case Studies Award, by China Philanthropy Times under the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
The chart at right lists some positive outcomes of the Connecting Sichuan program.
* According to a 2011 study on Connecting Sichuan conducted by Peking University
** According to a 2011 study of the nine participating Connecting Sichuan schools conducted by Sichuan Normal University
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