Telehealth

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai addressed barriers to high-speed connectivity in western Colorado and stuck to his post-network neutrality guns during a visit to St. Mary's Medical Center. Chairman Pai held a closed-door meeting with hospital leaders as part of a national tour to discuss how his agency relates to technology needed by rural hospitals that want to embrace telemedicine. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Pai said, from the FCC's viewpoint, connectivity remains the biggest hurdle to a serious move toward widespread use of telemedicine.

The Assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development is seeking applications to support regional economic development planning efforts in rural communities under the Rural Economic Development Innovation (REDI) initiative. This funding opportunity will be administered by the Rural Development Innovation Center, in partnership with the Rural BusinessCooperative Service. The agency is announcing up to $750,000 in competitive cooperative agreement funds in fiscal year (FY) 2018. Rural Development Agency may select one, multiple, or no award recipients.

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:

The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on the subjects listed below on Thursday, August 2, 2018:

[Commentary] Telemedicine providers can’t catch senior citizens when they fall. But health services delivered over broadband can make it possible for seniors to live independently for longer periods of time. For all of the potential that telehealth holds for assisting the aging-in-place process, telehealth’s success rides squarely on the back of quality broadband in the community. Municipal fiber networks can drive telehealth and broadband use. Small towns such as Wilson (NC) and Sebewaing (MI) with gigabit capacity infrastructure, keep subscribers happy.

Leading off our August agenda will be 5G, the next generation of wireless connectivity. We’ll finalize the rules for the auction of airwaves in the 28 GHz band and the auction of the 24 GHz band, which will follow immediately afterward.  These will be the first auctions of high-band spectrum for 5G services, but they won’t be the last.  Specifically, I’m excited to announce my plan to move forward with a single auction of three more millimeter-wave spectrum bands—the 37 GHz, 39 GHz, and 47 GHz bands—in the second half of 2019.