Engagement on Equity: Connectivity and the Future of Healthcare

Bridging the digital divide can help address our nation’s persistent health disparities. Rural Americans not only face limited access to health-care facilities, but “suffer from higher rates of obesity, mental health issues, diabetes, cancer, and opioid addiction.” But the tie that also binds is the lack of high-speed broadband connectivity in low-income communities, too. Rural America, as you know, is facing a physician shortage and low-income and rural populations are less likely to have choice when it comes to broadband providers. Allow me to be more direct: in those places where there is a wealth and/or population gap, there is a health care and broadband availability gap. While the challenge is clear, the cure is even clearer. With broadband connectivity, patients with virtually any condition can be seen remotely by a specialist without having to drive anywhere at all. So should come as no surprise that 52 percent of hospitals now use at least some form of telehealth, another 10 percent are just ramping up and we expect more to come on board. What does this make clear?  That a healthy America is a connected America. Conversely, if we fail to fully address America’s broadband connectivity gap – when it comes, to health and wellness in rural America -- none of us, will be completely well. Real, High-Performance Broadband can help solve some of health care’s most enduring problems and intractable challenges... and it can do so by delivering massive cost-saving opportunities. It can slow runaway health-care cost growth, enable patients to harness a new generation of connected-care devices that help them live longer and more productive lives and extend connected care everywhere while closing the rural health-care gap.

[Mignon Clyburn served as a Commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission from 2009 to 2018, including a term as Acting Chairwoman in 2013. She currently serves on the Benton Board of Directors]