Telehealth
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Lifeline offline: Unreliable internet, cell service are hurting rural Pennsylvania’s health
Even as businesses in Pittsburgh (PA) compete to commercialize artificial intelligence and give machines the human quality of “learning,” just a three-hour drive away people struggle with dial-up connections — if there are internet connections at all. More than 24 million Americans — 800,000 in Pennsylvania and mostly in rural areas — lack an internet connection that meets a federal minimum standard for speed. The result is a yawning divide in commerce, education and medicine that’s splitting America into the digital haves and have-nots.
Let’s make telemedicine available to all
[Commentary] Because we have seen the promise of telemedicine firsthand, we know that more can be done to make telemedicine mainstream to reach all who need it. The recent changes to Medicare [expanding telemedicine benefits for patients with stroke, kidney disease, and other chronic conditions] are an important step.
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FCC Increases Funding for Rural Telehealth
The Federal Communications Commission has provided a significant budgetary boost for its Rural Health Care Program to address immediate and longterm funding shortages driven by growing demand for rural telemedicine services. The FCC increased the annual cap on program spending by nearly 43 percent, to $571 million, which will reverse across-the-board spending cuts for the current funding year imposed by the old cap. These “pro-rata” cuts had created uncertainty and turmoil in the program for patients, health care providers, and communications companies alike.
Chairman Pai tours Boise (ID) VA facilities to discuss 'tele-healthcare'
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai swung through Boise (ID) to meet with healthcare professionals at the Veterans Affairs hospital. Chairman Pai discussed “tele-healthcare” with VA officials on the tail end of his tour that touched 30 states. While his visit was not related to network neutrality, Chairman Pai said both were in line with his overall vision for how to connect America. “By the FCC’s standards, some 30 to 34 million Americans, disproportionately rural, don’t have high quality access to the internet, and that is a big problem,” Chairman Pai said.
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Chairman Pai's Rural Health Care Proposal Receives Majority Support
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.
Chairman Pai Proposes Funding Increase for Rural Health Care Program
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that he has circulated a draft order to his colleagues that would take immediate action to significantly increase funding for the Universal Service Fund’s Rural Health Care Program. The program’s current annual funding cap is $400 million. The cap was set in 1997 and was never indexed for inflation. Recently, demand for funding under the program has outpaced the budget, creating uncertainty for patients, health care providers, and communications companies alike.
Cuts threaten subsidies for rural health broadband
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.
In rural America, digital divide slows a vital path for telemedicine
[Commentary] Telemedicine — the delivery of health care services using communications technology — can be a critical tool for making Americans healthier. A concerted push to seize the untapped potential of telemedicine could help us tackle today’s health challenges. The most crucial step in seizing the opportunities of digital medicine is making sure that every community has high-speed Internet access.
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SHLB Commends Bipartisan Group of Senators for Urging FCC to Increase Rural Health Care Funding
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.
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Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant Program Application Window
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.