May 1, 2009 By Wayne Hanson
Google has launched an experimental Web site to help track Mexico's flu cases. It's experimental, because unlike the U.S. version, the Mexico data is not validated against actual CDC flu surveillance results, but is based on the idea that people who search for flu-related topics often have flu symptoms. An official Google blog posted Wednesday said that the research model filters out generic searches for swine flu. Perhaps surprisingly -- given the recent media attention to swine flu -- overall incidence of flu is lower than many past years even though there is an annual spike in flu at this time of year.
This Digital Communities white paper highlights discussions with IT officials in four counties that have adopted shared services models. Our aim was to learn about the obstacles these governments have faced when it comes to shared services and what it takes to overcome those roadblocks. We also spoke with several members of the IT industry who have thought long and hard about these issues. The paper offers some best practices for shared government-to-government services, but also points out challenges that government and industry still must overcome before this model gains widespread adoption.
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Digital Communities (DC) is e.Republic‘s local government program. The particular strength of DC is its focus on encouraging collaboration and creating productive relationships between and among cities, counties, regions and select private sector companies uniquely positioned to help improve the delivery of public services.
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