Telemedicine

Federal Government Takes the Lead

In 2000, the U.S. Government is investing more than a billion dollars to reinvent the way that health care is delivered to the American people. Some of the money will go to research. Some of it will be used by Federal agencies like DOD and NASA to develop telemedicine initiatives tailored to serve their own workforces. And, much of the money will be parceled out by government agencies at every level in the form of grants to private institutions -- hospitals, colleges, and universities -- that are developing their own telemedicine infrastructures and responding to the specific needs of specific communities.

But, no matter where the money goes, providers and beneficiaries eventually must face the same fundamental truth. For telemedicine to work, everyone in the process has to be “wired.”

In places like rural Arkansas and Alabama, Oregon, and Washington, people with low incomes and poor access to medical facilities also live on the wrong side of the “digital divide,” so they continue to suffer from inadequate medical attention. The technology that patients need to benefit from telemedicine may be available at hosting facilities -- big hospitals in their state capitals – but, it’s absent from remote communities and the homes of potential users. And, without computers -- or even telephones, in some cases -- citizens in rural communities are unable to enjoy the benefits of telemedicine.

Bridging the “Digital Divide”

Federal agencies like the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and HHS think they have an answer. Not only is it important to develop technologies that can service patients who live far outside the traditional service areas, it’s also imperative to provide rural communities with the technologies and equipment they must have, and generally cannot afford, to access the services of long-distance medical providers.

USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) was created more than a half century ago to provide telephone service to rural America. Today, RUS is working aggressively to wire the communities of the rural poor with the telecommunications services they’ll need in the 21^st century.

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Federal Government Takes the Lead

In 2000, the U.S. Government is investing more than a billion dollars to reinvent the way that health care is delivered to the American people. Some of the money will go to research. Some of it will be used by Federal agencies like DOD and NASA to develop telemedicine initiatives tailored to serve their own workforces. And, much of the money will be parceled out by government agencies at every level in the form of grants to private institutions -- hospitals, colleges, and universities -- that are developing their own telemedicine infrastructures and responding to the specific needs of specific communities.

But, no matter where the money goes, providers and beneficiaries eventually must face the same fundamental truth. For telemedicine to work, everyone in the process has to be “wired.”

In places like rural Arkansas and Alabama, Oregon, and Washington, people with low incomes and poor access to medical facilities also live on the wrong side of the “digital divide,” so they continue to suffer from inadequate medical attention. The technology that patients need to benefit from telemedicine may be available at hosting facilities -- big hospitals in their state capitals – but, it’s absent from remote communities and the homes of potential users. And, without computers -- or even telephones, in some cases -- citizens in rural communities are unable to enjoy the benefits of telemedicine.