Health Information Technology

Public health officials say that using text messages, social media platforms, and other digital tools can be key in both tracking the health care behavior of people and disseminating lifesaving information during emergency situations. During public health emergencies — such as the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — it's difficult for public health officials to monitor people's health care behavior.

Effective, well thought-out, multi-faceted marketing can make your community broadband network more money and can cost less than sales teams alone. When Marketing work in conjunction with Sales, the network does better financially in the short- and long-term. Let’s use telehealth as an example. My 20 years of marketing work in the high-tech industry had me teaching a lot of folks in un-VC funded start-ups the values and virtues of marketing. It was easy to pigeonhole Marketing as a couple of folks creating snazzy brochures and snappy websites.

A growing body of research suggests that medication abortum could be offered without any in-person interaction at all. It’s a possibility that is already the subject of a contentious political debate—one that is likely to intensify with a Supreme Court more hostile toward abortum rights following the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Planned Parenthood affiliates in 10 states offer telemedicine abortum. Telehealth services are also offered at a Whole Woman’s Health clinic in Illinois and in Maine, at Maine Family Planning.

The Federal Communications Commission is exploring the creation of an experimental “Connected Care Pilot Program” to support the delivery of advanced telehealth services to low-income Americans. In a Notice of Inquiry (NOI), the FCC seeks comment on creating a Universal Service Fund pilot program to promote the use of broadband-enabled telehealth services among low-income families and veterans, with a focus on services delivered directly to patients beyond the doors of brick-and-mortar health care facilities. The NOI seeks comment on:

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that a majority of Commissioners have voted in favor of his proposal to increase funding for the Universal Service Fund’s Rural Health Care Program by $171 million a year. “Telemedicine is vital in many communities that may not otherwise have access to high-quality health care, and the Federal Communications Commission has an important role in promoting it. I want to thank Commissioners O’Rielly and Carr for their support as the FCC takes the critical step of updating its Rural Health Care Program.

More and more, rural hospitals and clinics rely on high-speed internet access to bridge the urban-rural gap and provide their patients with services that are often found only in much larger cities. But a federal program to help subsidize the cost of broadband for rural health care facilities has hit its funding cap, which may jeopardize the push to connect more rural health facilities. 

A bipartisan group of thirty-one Senators sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission calling for greater funding for the Rural Health Care (RHC) program.

Facebook was in discussions with major medical institutions about sharing user and patient data for a research project.

The Rural Utilities Service (RUS), an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA),  announces its Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) Grant Program application window for Fiscal Year (FY) 2018.