The FCC’s Healthcare Connect Fund will devote up to $400...
The FCC’s Healthcare Connect Fund will devote up to $400 million annually to foster telemedicine, it said Monday (http://xrl.us/bn9tcg). The fund will begin accepting applications in late summer and subsequently is intended to “spur the development of broadband networks to…
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support modern telemedicine, which will link urban medical centers to rural clinics or provide instant access to health records,” according to the commission. Its upfront payments are capped at $150 million annually. Potential applicants include hospitals, rural health clinics and centers, local health departments or agencies and medical schools. The fund will encourage communities to create “state and regional health care consortia to save costs and expand access to health care” and will give these successful applicants a 65 percent discount on “broadband services, equipment, connections to research and education networks, and [healthcare provider] HCP-constructed and owned facilities (if shown to be the most cost-effective connectivity option), while requiring a 35% HCP contribution,” the FCC said. The fund’s goals include increasing broadband access to rural healthcare providers and using lessons from the FCC’s pilot programs. It’s “expected to bring thousands of new providers across the country into the program, and allow thousands more to upgrade their connections,” the FCC said. The FCC is also set to launch in 2014 the three-year New Skilled Nursing Facilities Pilot Program, which will be giving out $50 million total.