U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Awards $145M for Telemedicine Networks

Colleagues,

As reported in Federal Computing Week ... The FCC is awarding $145 million to 16 telehealth projects that will link hundreds of hospitals with broadband networks in 17 states...

... The FCC is expanding its Rural Health Care Pilot Program, started in 2007 ... The pilot program also intends for the telehealth networks to support data transmission for electronic health records...

...The FCC grants will pay for deployment, including engineering and construction, of regional high-speed broadband networks to be used for telehealth. They will supplement $46 million in FCC funding for six rural telehealth projects announced in April 2009...

... eligibility for the FCC rural health funding is limited to 62 projects serving 6,000 care facilities in 42 states. The total funding available for all projects if $417 million. Most of the funding has not been awarded...

... Winners of the current round of funding that totals $145 million include:

New England Telehealth Consortium for Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire, $25 million.
Illinois Rural HealthNet Consortium, $22 million.
Michigan Public Health Institute, $21 million.
Oregon Health Network, $21 million.
Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, $16 million.
Northeast Ohio Regional Health Information Organization, $12 million.
Iowa Rural Health Telecommunications Program for Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota, $10 million;
West Virginia Telehealth Alliance for West Virginia, Virginia and Ohio, $8 million.
Pennsylvania Mountains Healthcare Alliance, $5 million.
Missouri Telehealth Network, $2 million.
North Country Telemedicine Project in New York State, $2 million.
Northeast HealthNet for Pennsylvania and New York State, $2 million.