Published: April 21, 2008 12:05 pm      

Information highway has many along for the ride

When Thelma Dibble started in-home nursing, she had to drive from her home in Portage to an office in Hollidaysburg to get information on the patients she was to see that day.

At the end of the day she had to drive back to Hollidaysburg to write up her reports.

The information superhighway has changed all that. It has revolutionized and improved home health care and countless other businesses in addition to changing the way people can do their jobs.

"The majority of their job can be done without coming into the office," Dibble said from Community Nursing and Home Health Inc.'s office at 244 Walnut St. in downtown Johnstown.

Dibble and Cathy Gilkey started Community Nursing in December 2005 following the closing of Community Nursing Service, a department of the former UPMC Lee Regional.

UPMC Lee was acquired by the Conemaugh Health System that already had a home nursing service, Conemaugh Home Health.

Dibble says computers allow her nurses to easily upload and download information while in the field.

"Health care has been influenced by technology," Linda Thomson, president of Johnstown Area Regional Industries, said in talking about what technological developments have meant to this area.

She said advancements in technology have made Johnstown and other small towns more attractive to businesses.

Geographical boundaries and highways are not as important as they once were in the location-selection process.



Telecommuting



Many companies can operate from virtually anywhere. People can live in this region and work for a company based elsewhere while rarely having to go into the home office. Yet they can be in touch with the headquarters almost instantly.

Telecommuting can benefit both employers and employees.

It allows employers to look for employees over a wider area. Relocating does not have to be a condition of employment. There can be savings since a company with many telecommuters could have reduced operating costs because it does not need as much space.

Advocates say telecommuting makes employees feel more trusted and, therefore, more likely to remain with the company for a longer time.

Research has found that telecommuting can save as much as 7.5 billion gallons of gasoline a year and would reduce Middle East oil imports by 24 percent to 48 percent.

The Internet has resulted in the creation of new job types such as Web masters and of business enterprises such as AutoTrader.com, an online marketplace where consumers can shop for cars.

That, in turn, has created jobs for people such as Mike Betcher of Windber - an advertising consultant for Autotrader.com who works out of his home.

"I've worked out of a virtual office environment for years," Betcher said.

A fax machine and a laptop computer allow him to work out of a spare bedroom.

He calls on car dealerships in Cambria, Somerset, Bedford, Blair and Centre counties. Taking a laptop with him means that information can be entered as he visits dealerships.

At the end of the day he uploads his day's work to a computer in Atlanta, where AutoTrader's parent, Cox Enterprises, is based.

Betcher says he sometimes misses the camaraderie of working in an office, but is able to keep in touch with fellow workers through e-mail and text messaging.

"Things change at Internet speed," he says in pointing out that people have to be very mobile in today's work environment.



'It's unbelievable'



The impact of technology is as boundless as the Internet itself.

Colleges such as Pennsylvania Highlands Community College and St. Francis University are among those offering classes online.

Thomson says the creation of higher-tech jobs in this area provides opportunities for younger people to find employment here or for former residents to return to an area that offers a high quality of life and a low cost of living.

Technology means that the National Drug Intelligence Center can operate out of Johnstown rather than the Washington, D.C., area.

Thomson said she sometimes wonders what our forefathers would think about today's technology and how it has transformed our lives.

"It's unbelievable," she said.

"Who knows what the future will bring?"

For nine years, Bill Felix used the Internet to boost business at his Candy Store, 225 Market St. But things can change.

He has decided to suspend, if not end completely, doing business on the Internet. That comes, he said, because of the sale and closing of a company that made a strawberry licorice product that represented half of the business Felix did on the Internet - that along with the labor and time needed to do business on the Internet and shipping and handling costs led to his decision.

Instead, he is adjusting his product lines and hoping that high gas prices, which he says are reducing the number of people coming into his store, soon will ease.

With technology and the transmission of information comes the need to ensure privacy. This is especially important where medical records are involved.

Community Nursing's Dibble says her employees have pin numbers and passwords and there is a firewall on its server, which has three levels of backup including an off-site one.