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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is the official name of the economic “stimulus” package that President Obama signed into law this past February. The $787 billion bill includes provisions for domestic spending in education, health care, and infrastructure, which encompasses a focus on broadband infrastructure build-out and deployment.
Hoping to cover at least two of those elements (broadband and healthcare), I reached out to Dr. Deb Jeffries, Director of Healthcare Markets atPolycom ( News – Alert). As one would imagine, Dr. Jeffries is a huge proponent of telemedicine, an area that Polycom is focusing on heavily. In addition to enabling collaboration through the use of tools like their latest videophone or video enabled medical cart, Polycom is working with institutions such as the University of New Mexico and their Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (Project ECHO).
Project ECHO is a telemedicine program run by the university that provides critical information to doctors working in rural parts of the state as well as in the state prison system.
The program is designed to enable frontline healthcare workers can communicate live with university healthcare specialists who can provide them with important information regarding patient care and treatment.
Dr. Jeffries was kind enough to share her thoughts with TMCnet.
GG: What are your initial thoughts on the Government’s stimulus efforts with regard to broadband deployment?
DJ: The ARRA offers $7.2 Billion dollars to support broadband deployment. This comes at a time when we are all struggling to reduce expenses, and yet still deliver the best possible services. By putting in the broadband infrastructure, we are opening the ‘roadways’ that will enable us to collaborate over great distances. Just as the interstate development allowed our economy to thrive when it was introduced, I believe that the broadband infrastructure will provide the highway for information flow that will enable quality healthcare to reach out to remote and rural areas to an extend only dreamed of in the past.
GG: How do you view the plan?
DJ: The ARRA represents a tremendous opportunity for us all. The key now is will it be embraced with open minds, and in a way that utilizes collaborative approaches to its fullest or will it merely be an extension of our current earth bound way of thinking? I believe we truly have an opportunity with the ARRA in place to put in the collaborative voice, video and data solutions that will enable our healthcare systems to decrease costs, improve service, and ultimately delivery better levels of patient care.
GG: What are some of the things we can do to take advantage of the ARRA?
DJ: In order to best take advantage of the plan, we need to understand our options, and work with companies that are experts in collaboration to truly be able to take advantage of the new paradigm that the rollout of broadband will enable. Polycom, for example, offers the expertise to help our customers design and implement collaborative healthcare solutions. And on top of that, Polycom has a team of experts to help people apply for grants made available under the ARRA.
GG: Who stands to benefit the most?
DJ: As you know, the President has outlined the major areas supported by the Stimulus Package, which include: Healthcare, Education, Environment and Security. Since healthcare affects every one of us, I think we all stand to benefit from the ARRA.
GG: What benefits do you foresee with regard to applications such as Telemedicine?
DJ: The benefits are numerous: improved patient care, reduced expenses, better access to information and resources, access to knowledge experts, increased revenue generating opportunities, more efficient workflows. The key is to envision a paradigm where you can see any one at any time to consult, discuss, design, learn, decide, and plan, and then imagine the time and money you have saved by doing this virtually. Imagine being in a remote area and accessing a neurologist at a Stroke Center of Excellence that is over a hundred miles away, in the few seconds it take to establish a video call. Picture being a primary care provider, sitting in his or her home office, viewing one of the world’s greatest dermatologists as he presents his latest finding, even before his slides are published. Or if a disaster strikes an area, imagine bringing in virtual specialists to deal with the emergency. These are the possibilities that are here and now for us to embrace.
GG: What other applications do you expect will see the biggest boost from the available funds?
DJ: Healthcare and Education are the two major industries impacted by the ARRA, but given the wide reach of the broadband roll out, I believe the benefits will be felt far and wide. Today it is important that we all take advantage of video collaborative tools to help us avoid travel costs, enable live access to workgroups for more timely planning and decision-making, and move into a world where video communications are as widely utilized as e-mail and the phone.
Greg Galitzine is editorial director for TMC’s (News – Alert) IP Communications suite of products, including TMCnet.com. To read more of Greg’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.
Source: http://hdvoice.tmcnet.com/topics/sip-endpoints/articles/55084-speaking-with-polycoms-dr-deb-jeffries-arra-telemedicine.htm
