Carr Details FCC's Efforts to Expand Telehealth, mHealth Networks

Some $200 million is available right now to help healthcare providers launch or expand telehealth programs during the Coronavirus pandemic, and another $100 million is set aside to expand connected health programs to rural areas over the next three years.

All courtesy of the Federal Communications Commission, whose goal is to improve the lines of communication – literally – upon which these platforms operate.

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“We’ve been active in supporting internet connectivity in telehealth for really over a decade,” says Brendan Carr, one of the FCC’s five commissioners. “What we’ve primarily done is support through funding high-speed connections to brick-and-mortar healthcare facilities, and that type of work has delivered some really amazing results.”

During an episode of Xtelligent Healthcare Media’s Healthcare Strategies podcast series recorded earlier this week, Carr explained how telehealth programs across the country are moving toward what he calls “connected care,” which changes the dynamic from patients seeking care at a hospital to patients accessing care at their convenience.

“Think of it like the healthcare equivalent of shifting from Blockbuster to Netflix,” he says. “Right now you don’t have to go to a brick-and-mortar facility all the time to receive high-quality care. With smartphones and internet connectivity right on your tablet … you can do video visits with doctors, dermatologists can use the camera on your phone to take a look at skin issues. We can do everything from diabetes to fetal monitoring for high-risk pregnancies.”

“We’ve been funding connections to hospitals (and) we’re going to keep doing that, but what the CARES Act was give us the funding to stand up a new connected care proceeding, and that is about those connections to people in their homes. It makes total sense right now – with COVID, we don’t want people going to a facility unless they need that type of care.”

Included in the CARES Act just a few weeks ago, the COVID-19 Telehealth Program, Carr says, aims to help providers not only isolate and treat patients infected with the virus, but also to separate and maintain care for high-risk populations and others who aren’t infected.

Six hospitals had been selected to receive funding from the new program when Carr talked to mHealthIntelligence; another five were selected on Tuesday, and more are expected to be announced soon.

With the $100 million Connected Care Pilot Program, first introduced in 2018 and finalized this year, the focus is on rural, underserved populations, including veterans.

“We want to make sure every single American has a fair shot at participating in that new trend” of connected care, Carr says. “So that’s why we want to pick up low-income Americans and veterans, to make sure they’re not left behind.”

The key, Carr says, is in providing the communications framework on which patients can access that care and providers can offer telehealth and mHealth services regardless of location.

“We have a lot of programs outside of these two that are designed to support the build-out of internet infrastructure in rural communities,” he says. “We’re spending billions of dollars to accomplish that goal.”

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