Stories in Wireless Healthcare

Patton Boggs LLP

Jennifer A. Cetta, Carly T. Didden and Rebecca Murphy Thompson

USA
February 26 2010

The FCC’s Rural Health Care Pilot Program announced the funding of an additional 16 broadband telehealth networks that will link hundreds of hospitals regionally in Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The 16 projects are eligible to receive up to a combined $145 million in reimbursement for deployment of regional telehealth networks that will provide critical, high-speed information links that can save lives and reduce the cost of health care in their rural communities:    

• Geisinger Health System (Pennsylvania) ($902 K) – Fifteen health care providers will be connected to existing broadband network structures in Pennsylvania to enable providers to access and use high-speed Internet bandwidth connections to transfer radiographs and other medical information and to support electronic record systems.
• Illinois Rural HealthNet Consortium ($21.06 M) – This statewide network will serve 87 health care facilities. More than 95 percent of the connected locations will have connectivity at speeds ranging from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps.
• Iowa Rural Health Telecommunications Program (Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota) ($9.95 M) – This project will support creation of a statewide broadband network that will link 100 health care facilities in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota at speeds of 1 Gbps.
• Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals ($15.9 million) – This broadband network will link 100 facilities, about 47 of which are rural, to government research institutions, enable patient access to medical specialists, and provide coordinated crisis response.
• Michigan Public Health Institute ($20.91 M) – New network infrastructure will connect existing state health networks to each other and to Internet2 at speeds ranging from 1.5 to 100 Mbps. The network will link approximately 390 facilities in Michigan primarily in rural, underserved areas of the state.
• Missouri Telehealth Network ($2.38 M) – This initiative will support the creation of a statewide dedicated telehealth broadband network for expanded telemedicine services, including high-definition video streaming capabilities. The network will support telehealth services for approximately 160 health care facilities throughout Missouri.
• New England Telehealth Consortium (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire) ($24.69 M) – A multi-state telehealth network will deliver remote trauma consultation and expansive telemedicine by linking approximately 500 primarily rural health care facilities – including hospitals, behavioral health sites, correctional facility clinics, and community health care centers – in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine to urban hospitals and universities in New England.
• North Country Telemedicine Project (New York) ($1.99 M) – About 30 health care facilities in a low-income, sparsely populated region of northern New York will be connected to an existing regional fiber ring and to Internet2, a dedicated nationwide backbone, at speeds ranging from 10 to 100 Mbps.
• Northeast HealthNet (Pennsylvania, New York) ($1.70 M) – This broadband network will facilitate real-time information sharing among approximately 38 mostly rural health care facilities, and thousands of specialists in Pennsylvania and New York State, to provide remote diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of patients with chronic and acute medical conditions.
• Northeast Ohio Regional Health Information Organization ($11.29 M) – This project will expand an existing network to connect approximately 19 medical facilities in 22 counties at speeds ranging from 100 Mbps for sites connected via wireless and 1 Gbps for sites connected with fiber.
• Northwestern Pennsylvania Telemedicine Initiative ($352 K) – This project will improve access to specialty medical services at five facilities, including two prisons. Its goals include using telemedicine to encourage medical professionals to establish services and remain in rural communities.
• Oregon Health Network ($20.18 M) – This project will support a comprehensive broadband telehealth network that will connect hospitals, clinics, and community colleges throughout Oregon. The network will support highly efficient broadband services for health care facilities and providers to share electronic health records, radiological images, video, and prescriptions, among other data sets.
• Pennsylvania Mountains Healthcare Alliance ($4.49 M) – A broadband network of 12 hospitals in rural western Pennsylvania will provide telehealth services, specialty care, and telepharmacy in 18 counties. The network will provide a minimum of 10 Mbps service and connect with Internet2. The project merged with the Juniata Valley Network project in the Appalachian Mountains that will connect 79 facilities to enable telemedicine and school wellness programs, and will connect to Internet2 at speeds ranging from 7 to 100 Mbps.
• Sanford Health Collaboration and Communication Channel (South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota) ($813 K) – This project will link seven existing networks at speeds of up to 100 Mbps to access administrative services and connect educational institutions. Facilities served include the Aberdeen, S.D., area Indian Health Services.
• St. Joseph’s Hospital (Wisconsin) ($655 K) – This project will link two existing fiber systems in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, to St. Joseph’s Hospital and two local community health clinics in order to support telehealth services.
• West Virginia Telehealth Alliance (West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio) ($8.4 M) – This statewide network will connect 450 facilities in West Virginia, improving rural health centers’ connectivity. The project targets regions with historically high concentrations of poor and elderly individuals with chronic medical conditions.

The FCC established the $417 million pilot program to increase patient access to health care via telemedicine and support the transfer of electronic medical records, which will improve the quality of health care. Nationwide, 62 projects are eligible to receive pilot program funding for telehealth networks serving 6,000 health care facilities in 42 states and three U.S. territories, using broadband technology to bring state-of-the-art medical practices to isolated rural communities. More than one-third of the networks have received funding commitment letters. Another 21 projects have posted requests for proposals to select vendors to build out their broadband networks, but have not yet selected a vendor.