By Craig Settles
A glimmer of bright silver light shone from within the COVID-19 pandemic – advancements in telehealth technology. Additionally, necessity became the mother of invention regarding how we reach populations in need of telehealth services, a goal that requires creative partnerships.
Billions of dollars in grant money has been earmarked for broadband programs and other digital technologies. Funding is flowing from just about every federal agency. How do we ensure that populations on the wrong side of the digital divide get access to those resources?
In an effort to reach COVID-19 vaccination goals, the Biden Administration partnered with barbershops and hair salons in African American communities to facilitate pop-up vaccination sites. Success is motivating shop owners to do more, such as incorporating telehealth to transform the health of their community.
For hypertension screening, for example, shops can take customers’ blood pressures digitally. The healthcare provider takes that data through telehealth and recommends treatment when necessary or advisable. Shops can then decide on additional telehealth services they want to provide based on the cost of providing healthcare services and level of risk incurred.
The shops could also work with libraries to develop health information and interactive Web content to reduce hypertension and other medical issues through healthier living. Notably, libraries may be able to provide telehealth services beyond what barber shops and hair salons can do.
Pete Pizzutillo of ETI Software and host of the Broadband Bunch capture the current dilemma in his statement, “Unfortunately, it took COVID to shift our conversations from if we need better access… to how do we get better digital infrastructure? Up and down the political food chain broadband was perceived as just another issue.”
Federal agencies, public and private broadband providers, and communities themselves have to be more creative in the use and the stated goals of incoming grant funding.
Hotspots technology brings telehealth home
Many libraries acquired and loaned out mobile hotspots to residents to use during the pandemic. The availability of the devices helped many in need. However, hotspots are not a long-term solution.
“On the one hand, mobile hotspots are an incredible stopgap solution while we wait to build out broadband infrastructure,” said Lucinda Nord, former Executive Director of the Indiana Library Federation. “They are a convenient size, it’s easy to deploy them to patrons and the government pays for the units. On the other hand, mobile hotspots are limited in quantity and reach, and should be considered only a stopgap solution.”
Mobile hotspots are frequently loaned with long wait lists and new units are back-ordered. Not only are there monthly service costs, but also maintenance and replacement costs. “Some companies require payment for the unit and then a monthly service fee while others simply require a monthly fee,” says Nord. “We have some libraries actually discontinuing use of mobile hotspots based on costs and loss rate.” All of these factors are important to consider when determining whether or not hotspots are the best avenue for supporting a patron’s telehealth needs.
Several vendors are developing carrier agnostic hotspot solutions. They help libraries and other institutions build their own wireless networks outside of the buildings using the same LTE or 5G technology that wireless carriers use. However, customers build them on publicly-available spectrum so hotspots are not anchored to one carrier’s proprietary network. Hotspots become an extension of customers’ wireless networks.
Telehealth requires enterprise-grade video and audio capacity and excellent lighting. Clinicians will make critical decisions based on the sound, appearance, and the perceived demeanor of patients. Michael McKerley, CTO at ENA. emphasizes, “It’s not just how much, it’s the quality and capacity of that bandwidth – equal download and upload speeds, low latency, low jitter, and extremely low packet loss.”
Communities should not skimp on the quality or the durability for their solutions.