We know that telehealth can bring medical treatment to areas around the country that lack access to even basic preventive primary care. But telemedicine is a technology inherently tied to our digital connectedness. For some rural areas without the Internet, there is no telemedicine treatment.
What urban dwellers may not realize is that there are large swathes of our nation’s rural communities that lack reliable high-speed Internet connectivity. They make up a sort of digital Wild West, where a lack of resources keeps some Americans from being able to access healthcare without traveling to find it.
24-Million Lack The Signal
Today, about 24-million Americans or a full eight percent of the population do not have access to high-speed Internet. In every state, there is a portion of the citizenry that has no access to broadband communications. While these communities may have access to satellite dish service, these are unreliable and expensive options that many people simply cannot afford.
The lack of broadband in these technologically forgotten communities creates more than an inability to binge Amazon Prime videos. Increasingly services that city-dwellers take for granted are Internet-first, meaning, they are almost exclusively tied to the Internet.
Think of all the tasks you use the Internet for, including reading this article. While filing taxes, applying for state and government programs, and student loans can still be accessed via snail mail, many of these services are growing increasingly digital-centric. Job applications are now almost exclusively online. Remote or freelance jobs require Internet connectivity. This lack of access leaves these digitally forgotten communities lagging behind and there is a clear economic impact that is causing young people to move from rural communities.
Research shows that increased broadband adoption has a correlation to unemployment. In these communities, students cannot access Google for research and businesses must write down credit card numbers by hand. But it also means that many of these communities lack access to quality healthcare, which is certainly more ominous than not being able to see the latest Presidential tweet.
Pushing Telehealth to the Wild Places
“As telehealth grows in popularity and availability, it has a lot to offer rural communities, bringing specialists and even primary care into the homes of those who may be hours away from the nearest healthcare provider. But before telehealth can reach an area, reliable, high-speed connectivity must get there first – a major barrier to the expansion of telehealth in rural regions of the country.”
There are signs that the funding to stretch broadband access to rural communities is about to shake loose from the federal money tree. HealthTech Magazine reported that $100 million in funding in now available in a federal program to build telehealth access to underserved patients in rural communities. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) press release on the Connected Care Pilot Program stated, “Given the significant cost savings and improved patient outcomes associated with connected care, we should align public policy in support of this movement in telehealth.”
The goal of the Connected Care is to use the funding to build infrastructures in support of telemedicine access to healthcare for low-income, rural, veteran, and Native American populations. The program will bring virtual house calls and remote monitoring to these communities in order to reduce costs, increase savings, and improve clinical outcomes.
What it means for these populations is that “high-tech, life-saving services are no longer limited to the confines of connected, brick-and-mortar facilities.”
Healthcare Organizations Support Connected Telehealth Initiatives
Last fall a number of healthcare organizations came out in support of the Connected Care initiative. The American Hospital Association (AHA) encouraged the FCC to use this telehealth initiative to improve care continuity, as well as access and outcomes in these rural settings.
The AHA also made five key suggestions for the design and implementation of Connected Care, including:
- Design an administratively simple program that does not create new barriers to telehealth.
- Identify realistic and attainable goals with benchmarks for success.
- Award enough budget to ensure the projects will be completed.
- Support innovative community-driven, not corporate-centric projects.
- Protect patient data.
The AHA suggested that creating a successful telemedicine program for these communities must ensure that the healthcare providers and patients have sufficient connectivity and that the patients have access to the equipment to access treatment.
The Connected Health Initiative also came out in favor of the new FCC funding. The Executive Director of the organization stated, “Without access to broadband, the personalized care, expedited diagnoses, lowered healthcare costs, and countless cost-saving, life-saving benefits of telehealth would be utterly impossible.”
Not surprisingly, the National Association of ACO’s (NAACOS), an organization devoted to eliminating ineffective services and cutting healthcare costs, came out in support of Connected Care. The endorsement letter from the NAACOS pointed out that this healthcare provider model serves these rural communities and has seen first-hand how telemedicine can increase access. The organization suggested seeking the input of these rural constituents in order to design programs that best fit their needs and the needs of the communities they serve.
How Increased Broadband Helps Rural Healthcare
Interestingly, the FCC pointed to successful telehealth pilots for rural care that have increased access, cut costs, and improved healthcare outcomes. They noted:
- A rural telehealth initiative in Mississippi that put Internet connectivity in the form of tablets in the hands of diabetic patients in some of the most poverty-stricken areas of our nation. More than 12% of the state has been diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes, and the cost burdens are in the billions. But the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) and telecom provider C Spire created a Diabetes Telehealth Network to bring the power of the virtual house call to rural patients.
- The Veterans’ Health Administration (VHA) and their use of connected telehealth to offer both primary and specialty care to armed service members around the nation. In fact, the VA was an early telemedicine adopter and has a long history with connected care. The outcomes have been phenomenal and the organization is expanding these services.
Bringing telehealth to our nation’s rural communities is an effort that has been a long time coming. As the FCC moves these projects forward, they will offer, literally, a lifeline to these underserved populations.
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