health, to obtain the same medical advice
they can now receive via live, real-time
video consultation. The DLT grant offers
special incentives for applicants whose
telemedicine proposals contain at least one
end-user site that lies within a tribal area,
or within a land trust such as the Chamorro
Land Trust on Guam.
Other key USDA funding opportunities
for telecommunications include:
ture Loan Program, which provides
loans to improve and build telecommu-
nications service in rural communities
(meaning with populations of less than
5,000 people).
Program, which provides grants for
broadband service providers who offer
broadband services in rural areas
(applies to sites of less than 20,000
people). Awardees must serve an area
where broadband does not exist, provide
a community center with broadband
access, and offer broadband service to
all customers.
Initiative, which provides funding
through the USDA Rural Development
Community Facilities Program to
specifically strengthen the ability of
rural communities to respond to local
emergencies by financing needed
services and equipment.
Health and Human Services
(HHS)
Distance Learning and Telemedicine
(DLT) and related grants to worthy
recipients in some of the most needy
and underserved areas of the nation, the
U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS)
Office for the Advancement of Telehealth
(OAT) also promotes the use of these
technologies for health care delivery.
OAT defines telehealth as "the use of
telecommunications and information
technologies to share information, and
to provide clinical care, education, public
health and administrative services at
a distance."
telemedicine programs offered by OAT:
Program (TNGP) funds projects
that demonstrate the use of telehealth
networks to improve health care services
for medically underserved populations
in urban, rural and frontier communities.
The networks may 1) expand access to
and improve the quality of health care
services; 2) improve and expand the
training of health care providers; and/
or 3) expand and improve the quality of
health information available to health
care providers and their patients. The
goal of the TNPG is to help communities
build the human, technical and
financial capacity to develop sustainable
telehealth programs and networks.
(TRC) is a competitive grant program
that assist health care organizations,
health care networks, and health care
providers in the implementation of cost-
effective telehealth programs to serve
rural and medically underserved areas
and populations.
Development Planning Grant helps
rural entities plan, organize and develop
health care networks. Support from the
program helps health care networks
become operational and develop
strategies for becoming self-sustaining.
Network Grant Program supports the
implementation and evaluation of broad
telehealth networks to deliver emergency
department consultation services
via telehealth to providers without
emergency specialists.
and Quality (AHRQ) supports the
planning, implementation and evaluation
of health IT and fosters the exchange of
health information.
Communications Commission
(FCC) also administers a Rural Healthcare
providers for telecommunications and
broadband services necessary to provide
increased access to health care through its
Healthcare Connect Fund and affiliated
programs.
based on prior FCC pilot programs to
spur the development of high-capacity
broadband connectivity to eligible
health care providers. It encourages the
formation of state and regional broadband
provider networks. Under the program,
eligible rural providers and those non-
rural providers who are members of a
consortium that has more than 50 percent
rural provider sites are able to receive
a 65 percent discount on all eligible
expenses. Eligible expenses include
broadband services and equipment, and,
for consortium applicants, provider-
constructed and owned network facilities.
subject of a potential FCC pilot program
to test support for broadband connections
to skilled nursing facilities.
are transforming the way in which
primary care providers and specialists
interact, collaborate and care for
patients. Telemedicine connects primary
care providers at end-sites with a
multidisciplinary team of specialists at
a central hub, and that single team of
specialists can provide guidance to many
physicians in remote areas. In turn, being
able to present the nature of their patients'
conditions to the specialists enables the
doctors in the field to gain knowledge,
expertise and confidence regarding how
they can address the often complex medical
conditions they perhaps must otherwise
confront on their own.
Telemedicine is transforming the ways
in which hospitals and other providers share
medical knowledge and its application in
everyday practice. In the process, physicians
are providing thousands of people in remote
and medically underserved communities
with care they might otherwise not receive.
Federal funds permit hospital CEOs to do
more with less while gaining access to larger
numbers of new patients.