A 54-page report from the Broadband Coalition issued last week contains several novel ideas for increasing broadband adoption based on an analysis that looked at how specific broadband applications could benefit various industries and what policy moves might need to be made to facilitate those applications.
In the area of emergency medical response, for example, the authors write: “The balkanization of emergency medical response means that the systemic costs and benefits of making the end to end process efficient and informed cannot be demonstrated or realized today because there is no ‘owner’ of the entire process. Thus, there is also no party with an incentive today to tie together the various elements (private sector, 9-1-1, EMS, hospital, public health, research.) An almost complete lack of understanding of HIPPA is a barrier that is unique to emergency medical response. As the authors of HIPAA have made clear on multiple occasions, the purpose and letter of the law were not to preclude information sharing to assist in the care of patients. Indeed, there is a complete exemption within HIPAA for emergency care. But for a variety of reasons, HIPAA has become a favorite excuse not to move forward with information sharing.”
The report authors also argue that ultra broadband speeds and better quality of service definitions will be required to support clinical services such as electronic home monitoring of diabetics. “Unlike 9-1-1- for emergency response, a remote health care service that may have life and death consequences has no assurance of availability or quality of services,” the authors write.
The U.S. Broadband Coalition has more than 160 member organizations, representing a wide variety of stakeholders, including communications providers, high technology companies, manufacturers, consumer groups, labor unions, public interest groups, educators, state and local governments, utilities, content creators, and foundations. The report was authored by the coalition’s adoption and use working group.
Some of the report recommendations—such as a suggestion that funding for the E-rate schools and libraries program should be increased from $2.25 to $4 billion—would increase the cost of federal programs. Other suggestions, however, aim to help government-supported functions operate more efficiently, thereby reducing costs. For example, report authors advocate greater use of hosted managed services, citing public service answering points as good candidates for consolidation.
Like this post? Sign up for our RSS Feed, and/or Twitter
