Affordable Rural Broadband is Necessary to Extend Digital Healthcare Access
The New York Times recently profiled NuPhysicia, a start-up company that instantly connects doctors and patients around the world via face-to-face telemedicine, or e-care.
NuPhysica demonstrate how broadband removes geography and time as barriers to care by enabling video consultation and remote patient monitoring. E-care, which allows physicians and patients to make better decisions quickly, is critical to extending the reach of specialized medicine to patients in rural and underserved areas across America.
Alarmingly, the U.S. lags the rest of the world in broadband connectivity and e-care adoption. According to the FCC, approximately 7 percent of small physician offices in rural communities face a connectivity barrier to providing e-care. E-care adoption rates are dismally low across the country. A Joint Advisory Committee to Congress found that less than 1 percent of doctors use e-care and, if enabled at all, use it on a limited basis.
In order to power digital healthcare and other broadband-enabled solutions, the National Broadband Plan proposes that every community should have affordable access to at least 1 gigabite per second broadband service, so as to anchor hospitals and primary healthcare providers.
To read the entire National Broadband Plan for Healthcare, click here. To read Speed Matters' resource page on the importance of high-speed broadband Internet to health care, click here.
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