How Telehealth and Telehealth Access Points Drive Broadband Adoption

What can make people enthusiastic about broadband? What if a community, using the creation orientation, views broadband as the means to build or invent things that didn’t exist before? Essential Families is a 501c3 nonprofit that provides virtual parental education and mental healthcare services. The organization conducted a telehealth pilot in one of the poorest communities in Kansas City (MO) with stellar results. The Northwest Regional Telehealth Resource Center (NRTRC) and the Utah Education and Telehealth Network (UETN) noted the rapid growth of telehealth due to COVID-19, but knew not everyone who needed it had Internet access or computing devices. The agencies created and publicized the Find Telehealth app so that residents in the Northwest region were aware of public community facilities offering dedicated telehealth access points (TAPs).

[Craig Settles assists cities and co-ops with business planning for broadband and telehealth.]