Dear Friends:

Delivering health care to Florida’s rural communities has always been challenging.  The distances to providers and the scarcity of providers are significant barriers to access, and as a result, rural patients typically receive less care than those in Florida’s urban communities.

In an effort to connect Floridians in our northwest Florida rural communities to the health care they need, the Federal Communication Commission awarded $9.6 million to the Big Bend Regional Healthcare Information Organization and our Agency to build a gigabit fiber network to nine rural hospitals and surrounding clinics in the Florida Panhandle.

We recently met with Allen Byington, Executive Director of the Big Bend Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO), and Dr. Lonnie Draper, an emergency room physician at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, who have been active in launching the Big Bend RHIO and in securing this grant funding.  To learn more about the Big Bend RHIO, click the link below:

They talked about the opportunity to connect nine hospitals, including Calhoun-Liberty Hospital in Blountstown, George Weems Memorial Hospital in Apalachicola, Gadsden Community Hospital in Quincy, Sacred Heart Hospital in Port St Joe, Doctor’s Memorial Hospital in Bonifay, Campbellton-Graceville Hospital in Graceville, Jackson Hospital in Marianna, Madison County Memorial Hospital in Madison and Doctor’s Memorial in Perry.  These hospitals have been serving traditionally underserved communities and have not always had access to important health information technology.  For these hospitals, the broadband is truly a lifeline.

Once the network connections are complete, the hospitals will be online with the Big Bend RHIO, which will provide secure messaging services and facilitate the transmission of large imaging files such as x-rays, MRIs, CAT scans from fixed or mobile imaging units and other digital files between the rural and urban specialty providers in their network.

After the hospitals are connected, the network will be used to expand the number of tele-health services available to rural physicians and should help them improve the quality of care for their patients.  In addition, more commercial services can be added to generate revenue and to subsidize the rate for the rural hospitals.

Sincerely,