Broadband plan aims to improve HIT infrastructure

The Federal Communications Commission has laid out an ambitious 10-year plan for drastically improving broadband connectivity and usage that, among other goals, aims to improve healthcare delivery, patient outcomes and control medical costs nationwide.

In a chapter dedicated to healthcare information technology infrastructure and usage, the National Broadband Plan offered 11 recommendations for how the government could incentivize healthcare providers' use of e-care technology, which FCC officials estimated would save the country $700 billion over the next 20 years. The recommendations include reimbursement incentives that pay providers for adoption and use of e-care services, such as remote diabetes monitoring and mobile medical applications, that are proven to improve patient outcomes and save money. The agency also proposes setting up a dedicated healthcare broadband access fund that would help providers pay for broadband services in areas where connectivity is more expensive because of a dearth of available service providers.

Mohit Kaushal, the FCC's director of connected health, said the recommendations are based on recent FCC research findings. "Unfortunately, there are really no data out there around connectivity for healthcare providers, so we had to do a lot of research" to determine what services are available to hospitals and physicians, Kaushal said. "The biggest problem that it highlighted is the severity of costs. Some physician offices are going to have to pay more for broadband service than physicians in other areas."