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FCC Evaluates Rural Health Broadband Efforts
It's been six years since the federal government provided $418 million in grant money to the Rural Health Care Pilot Program as part of an effort to bring broadband to rural providers.
This week the Federal Communications Commission issued an upbeat and somewhat obvious 98-page report that highlights the progress made by the pilot project since its inception in 2006, offers obvious commentary on the benefits of telemedicine, and details the lessons learned.
A brief history: The pilot program was created as part of the FCC's statutory mandate to implement universal communications services to rural providers. The idea was to improve access to quality care and reduce costs for rural providers by giving them remote access to the broader array of services and resources available to many urban providers.
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Comments are moderated. Please be patient.
David Hold (8/16/2012 at 9:52 AM)
.I am reading with great interest the comments that you have made on the FCC study in reference to broad band. although i do agree that broad band is a good development in the development of rural health delivery, I find it ridiculous to classify it as the most important aspect of the delivery of good health care in this areas. To a certain extend the telephone carriers have brainwashed us to this notion so the development of this infrastructure can be paid for by the taxpayers for their benefit. Matter of fact a recent study of one of the universities has shown how ridiculous this concept is, considering that this little hospitals do not have the financial ability to pay for the sophisticated diagnostic equipments that this theory calls for. There are more efficient and economically feasible systems that can accomplish better health care in the rural area with the existing infrastructure and that is "preventive healthcare " where the patient can be monitored for the conditions that create complications and use the regional big hospitals to address this issues before it gets critical