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ALBEMARLE HEALTH RECEIVES MORE THAN $1.5 MILLION INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AWARD
Albemarle Health received more than $1.5 million in an information technology award from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Tuesday, November 20, in a ceremony at Pitt County Memorial Hospital, in Greenville. The award will allow Albemarle Health to become the Broadband Network Provider to physicians providing healthcare services throughout northeastern North Carolina.
Although most, if not all, physicians who maintain a practice in the Albemarle region have Internet access, they lack the information technology resources and engineering to develop commercial grade networks outside of their practice. In addition, the widespread use of Internet broadband has limitations, and is not available throughout the hospital's seven-county service area.
"This award will allow us to provide high-speed bandwidth to healthcare providers, and other health agencies in our region, to enable access to, and transfer of, health data and electronic images," said Stephen Clark, Albemarle Health's Chief Information Officer. "In addition, we will be able to develop high-speed connectivity with other hospitals and healthcare organizations in the eastern half of the state and in Tidewater, Virginia, including Pitt County Memorial Hospital, University of North Carolina Health Services, and Sentara."
 Albemarle Health's Information Services Department will provide computer networks to regional physicians and healthcare providers. These networks will be dedicated, private networks specifically designed to secure health information and assure high performance in the exchange of health information and medical imaging. The Albemarle Health Information Services Department will also provide technical services and leadership for the design, support, and maintenance to physicians who take advantage of this opportunity.
"This is an incredible opportunity for the residents of northeastern North Carolina," said Sharon M. Tanner, Albemarle Health President and CEO. "This award will provide physicians with a greater capacity to share healthcare information with other physicians and hospitals to which we refer, thus ensuring better continuity of care and clinical decision making."
The Albemarle Health award is part of a $417 million Rural Health Care Pilot Program (RHCPP), funded by the Federal Communications Commission, that seeks to expand healthcare access to America's rural and underserved communities through the creation of 69 broadband telehealth networks in 42 states, and three U.S. territories. The RHCPP will reach more than 6,000 healthcare facilities, and create: large-scale networks connecting hundreds of facilities over a multi-state region; small-scale networks that provide a critical advanced broadband link for regional hospitals or clinics; and connections to insular areas and isolated regions.
The FCC announced Albemarle Health will receive $527,692 annually over the next three years. The award will pay up to 85 percent of the costs associated with the design, engineering, and construction of innovative and highly efficient broadband systems.
"Electronic medical records will improve the healthcare treatment Americans receive by, among other things, ensuring appropriate medical information is available; reducing medical errors; reducing healthcare costs; and improving the coordination among healthcare facilities," said Kevin J. Martin, FCC Chairman. "But all of these benefits rely on an underlying health IT (information technology) infrastructure that is capable of sharing this information. In order to receive the benefits of electronic healthcare records, healthcare providers must have access to underlying broadband infrastructure - without this underlying infrastructure, efforts to implement electronic health care records cannot succeed."
Sharon said the FCC award would extend the improvements in information technology Albemarle Health has already begun.
"Albemarle Health upgraded its computer network in October 2006 to use fiber optic technology for data and voice transmission among its various locations," she said. "With this FCC funding, our intent is to create that same kind of connectivity in a network comprised of our physicians, who are really the heart of our medical community."
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