FCC’s Objective

The FCC initiated this “pilot funding program to facilitate the creation of a nationwide broadband network dedicated to health care, connecting public and private non-profit health care providers in rural and urban locations.”

Project Goals

Michigan’s FCC Pilot Program identifies several goals, including

• Building rural telehealth infrastructure and services where the need is most acute,
• Improving medical treatment and outcome through the use of telehealth, health medicine, and telehealth information exchange,
• Improving disaster preparedness by enhancing the public health infrastructure, as well as Michigan’s ability to work closely with law enforcement during emergencies, and
• Improving Michigan’s economy and the efficiency and effectiveness of its health care delivery system, while protecting against waste, fraud and abuse.   

The requested funding would pay for the infrastructure necessary to link 300 to 400 rural hospitals and clinics in Michigan to high speed internet.  The first priority for funding is to increase broadband availability and affordability in rural clinics and small hospitals.  The second priority is to increase the amount of bandwidth to regional and referral hospitals so they can handle the increase in traffic (e.g. a single MRI can reach into the tens of megabytes, which current bandwidth does not support at these facilities).