News

RHCPP Update, October, 2009

History of the Project to Date.  In 2007, on behalf of the State of Michigan, the Michigan Public Health Institute (MPHI) applied to participate in the FCC’s Rural Health Care Pilot Program (RHCPP).  The program helps rural health care providers (HCPs) pay for broadband access or networks dedicated to health care.  The FCC awarded Michigan $21 million.  MPHI, which became the project manager, spent the summer of 2008 recruiting sites to participate in the network and writing an RFP (Request for Proposal) to select a vendor.  By late September, 551 sites had applied.  In early October, MPHI submitted the list of sites and the RFP to USAC (the Universal Service Administrative Company), which is administering the federal funds for the FCC.  USAC quickly approved the text of the RFP.  However, the site eligibility verification process turned out to be extremely slow.  In the spring of 2009, USAC finally completed the site vetting process (with the exception of a few sites).  Other USAC administrative processes continued through the summer of 2009. 

Primarily as a result of USAC’s slow site approval process, by February 2009 the project was months behind its original schedule.  Coincidentally, on February 17th, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), more commonly known as the stimulus package.   As part of the ARRA, up to $7.2 billion will be made available for broadband in underserved areas, a purpose remarkably similar to that of the RHCPP.  Several vendors have applied for ARRA funds to build high-speed “middle-mile” infrastructure in the more rural parts of Michigan.  That “middle-mile” infrastructure will be available for use by everyone in the community—health care facilities, government offices, schools, businesses, and individual consumers.  The plan to build middle-mile infrastructure within Michigan presented an irresistible opportunity to leverage FCC funding.  The RHCPP can use the middle-mile infrastructure in many areas of Michigan, eliminating the need for the RHCPP to pay for that infrastructure.  The benefits of waiting are considerable.  Participating HCPs will receive more bandwidth, lower costs, or both. 

This past spring, MPHI released two RFPs to complete a wireless network linking a consortium of eight hospitals in the thumb region of Michigan.  The original Michigan RHCPP plan called for these two RFPs to be released following the primary, statewide RFP, but the delays with the primary RFP and other timing factors accelerated the timetable for the smaller RFPs.  The Thumb Rural Health Network (TRHN) will be integrated into the larger, statewide health care network when the latter is built.  MPHI decided to proceed with this mini-project because of its fit with the future statewide network, the commitment TRHN has displayed by completing a significant portion of the network with its own funds, and the urgent need for high speed exchange of data among TRHN’s member hospitals.  

Next Steps.  Now that the majority of the USAC administrative process is complete, MPHI plans to post its RFP this fall.  The RFP will be posted for about 75 days.  MPHI will then use the vendor bids that it considers to be most responsive to calculate the likely network costs for each participating HCP.  Each HCP will be given its cost figures and asked to either re-affirm its participation in the project (with a commitment of five or ten years) or withdraw from the project.  Once the list of participating HCPs has been finalized, MPHI will ask the most responsive vendors to adjust and finalize their proposals.  MPHI will then select a vendor and negotiate a contract.  USAC will be monitoring, auditing, and approving each step of this process, which may entail some significant delays.  Regardless, MPHI’s estimates that construction will begin in the spring of 2010.

More Information.  For more information, please see “Contact Us” under the “Contacts” tab on the main page of this website.

 

 

Additional Links