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Oregon Health
Network Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the Oregon
Health Network (OHN)?
2. Who is
involved in the Oregon Health Network
3. How much money
did the FCC award to Oregon?
4.
Where does the money for the FCC pilot program come from?
5.
What can the FCC funding be used for?
6. How is the OHN funding
distributed?
7. What communities & organizations are responsible for delivering the
objectives of the Oregon Health Network?
8. What are the goals of the OHN?
9. How will
the OHN implementation be accomplished?
10. Who provided in-kind or financial support for the preparation of the FCC
application?
11.
Which elected officials provided support for the application?
12. Who are or can be
members of the OHN?
13. What are the next
steps?
14. What are the benefits of a telehealth network for Oregon and Oregonians?
15. Why is Oregon
receiving funds from the FCC?
16. Who is
involved and/or impacted by the FCC award?
17. When does the FCC award
take effect?
18. Where can I find more
information?
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What is the Oregon
Health Network (OHN)?
The
Oregon Health Network is an organization created to address the need for a
seamless telehealth network throughout the state of Oregon through which
the potential of telecommunications for health care delivery and health
care education can be realized. Upon full realization, the OHN will
interconnect all Oregon hospitals, clinics, county public health offices,
physicians, mental health, dental and optical clinics, and health
education institutions with a level of interactive service delivery and
access to resources once only imagined in rural and underserved
communities. The OHN is designed to be inter-operable with Oregon Public
Safety and Emergency Management networks, and Oregon government and
education networks. It will also connect with both the Internet and
Internet2/National Lambda Rail assuring access to all sites on these
networks, a critical first step toward a national communications highway.
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Who
is involved in the Oregon Health Network
More than 150 Oregon individuals and organizations, led by
the Oregon
Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (OAHHS) and the Telehealth
Alliance of Oregon (TAO), collaborated
in the development of the Oregon Health Network
plan and proposal. The OAHHS Research and Education Foundation (OREF)
is the applicant for Federal Communications Commission (FCC) funding, and
will serve as the administrative and fiduciary agent for the for the
Oregon component of the FCC pilot program. The OAHHS will draw upon the
expertise of TAO. The intention is to create a self governing OHN that
will chart its own course as an independent charitable non-profit
organization, fully able to advance and support the expansion of
telehealth across Oregon as well as to manage the strategic and
operational oversight of a complex and inclusive OHN.
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How much money did
the FCC award to Oregon?
The FCC awarded OHN
$20,182,625 over a three year period ($6,727,541.67 per year).
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Where
does the money for the FCC pilot program come from?
The
money is not congressionally appropriated tax funds. It comes from the
Universal Service Fund surcharge on our telephone bills. The purpose of
the Universal Service Fund is to make telecommunications services
available and affordable for everyone. Four components of the Universal
Service Fund are: the schools and libraries fund, the low income fund, the
rural health care fund and the high cost fund. OHN funding comes from the
rural health care component of the universal service fund.
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What can the FCC funding be
used for?
The FCC award can be
used only to pay up to 85% of the costs of constructing and using the
physical network. It does not provide funds for administration, for
applications development or other functions and services that OHN hopes to
provide or facilitate.
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How is the OHN funding
distributed?
Unlike grant funds that are typically distributed to the grant recipient
to achieve the purposes of the grant, OHN funds will be paid directly to
telecommunications service providers by the Universal Service
Administrative Company (USAC), which is tasked by the FCC to administer
the funds. OHN will send vendor invoices to USAC monthly along with
certification that the services and beneficiaries meet the eligibility
requirements, and that the 15% matching fund requirement has been paid for
each invoice. USAC will then pay the remaining 85% of each invoice to the
appropriate telecommunications service providers.
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What communities & organizations are responsible for delivering the
objectives of the Oregon Health Network?
The non-profit
corporation OAHHS Research and Education Foundation (OREF) is the
applicant organization to the FCC Pilot Program. Administrative and
fiduciary governance of the Oregon Health Network will be contracted to
OREF for a minimum of two years. Operational leadership and organizational
management for the first two years will be provided by the non-profit
corporation Telehealth Alliance of Oregon. During this period, a
non-profit corporation, the Oregon Health Network, will be established to
manage the operation in subsequent years.
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What are the goals of the OHN?
Four
primary goals have been established to inform and guide the implementation
of the OHN:
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Oregon will
achieve significant advances toward parity in its health related
services across its urban, suburban and rural regions through the
deployment of the OHN as an independent member organization.
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The
proliferation of successful telehealth applications across Oregon’s most
underserved areas will be attained through the active involvement of
rural stakeholders, and a comprehensive program of education and
technical support of rural network users.
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The active and
ongoing participation of rural providers in telehealth applications will
be sustained by a sliding scale fee system.
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OHN will establish a statewide
broadband network and network applications that improve
access to
and quality of
care in Oregon, as well as
participate in development of a national health network that more fully
serves the healthcare needs of all U.S. citizens.
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How will the OHN
implementation be accomplished?
The Oregon Health
Network will be an independent member-based Oregon non-profit corporation
with broad representation of all Oregon stakeholders with an interest in
improving Oregon’s telecommunications infrastructure for health care and
health education. The Research and Education Foundation of the Oregon
Association of Hospitals and Health Systems is the fiscal agent for OHN.
The OHN team will work to interconnect Oregon’s existing hospital networks
and make technical and management plans for a Network Operations Center
that will monitor network performance to ensure that the quality of
service meets the standards required for critical medical applications.
OHN will conduct a
competitive procurement to select the most cost-effective
telecommunications providers to bring high quality broadband network
services to currently under-served rural hospital, clinic, public health
and health education locations throughout Oregon.
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Who provided in-kind or financial support for the preparation of the FCC
application?
Oregon Association of
Hospitals and Health Systems
Telehealth Alliance of Oregon
Allied Healthcare for Oregon: Seeking Solutions Through Technology (AHOSST)
Asante Health System
Blue Mt. Community College
Easy Street
Frontier TeleNet
Health Future
Link Shadley
LS Networks
Oregon Medical Association
Oregon Office of Rural Health
PolyCom
Providence Health and Services
Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield
State of Oregon, Dept. of Administrative Services
Southern Coos Hospital
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Which elected officials provided support for the application?
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Governor
Ted Kulongoski provided a letter of support that was included in the
application.
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The 2007
Legislature passed a Joint Resolution (SJR 20) supporting the application
that was included in the application.
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Each
member of Oregon’s Congressional delegation—Senator Smith, Senator Wyden,
Reps. Blumenhauer, DeFazio, Hooley, Walden, and Wu—provided a letter of
support for the application and kept in close contact with the FCC during
the review of the applications.
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Who are or can be members
of the OHN?
Organizations involved in health care or
health education are eligible to join OHN.
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What are the next steps?
OHN will interconnect Oregon’s existing
hospital networks into a “network of networks” for the exchange of medical
information. This will also permit the rural hospitals and clinics that
are the primary beneficiaries of the FCC funding to connect with any of
the major hospital systems in Oregon.
OHN will develop and implement plans for
monitoring the network to ensure that end to end performance across
multiple telecommunications vendors meets the quality required for medical
applications.
OHN will conduct a competitive procurement
to select the most cost-effective telecommunications provider for each
rural location to be served.
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What are the benefits of a telehealth network for Oregon and Oregonians?
The OHN will serve all
Oregon citizens. The Oregon Health Network (OHN) pilot project has the
potential to provide important services to Oregon’s 3.6 million citizens
and 482 towns and communities throughout the state. Of those, 396 are
rural or underserved towns and communities.
The
OHN will improve access to health services. The OHN pilot project funds
the creation of a “communications highway” that will fundamentally change
the face of rural health care by facilitating patient access to services
among local, regional and state networks. Oregon hospitals and clinics,
health care providers, health plans, educators, state and federal elected
leaders and organizations are committed to advancing access to health care
services across every corner of the state through the OHN pilot project.
The OHN pilot project is the first step toward building a national
communications highway connecting providers and facilities across the
country.
The
OHN will improve health service quality. Health care providers, health
plans, patients, communities and education programs all benefit from the
OHN pilot project. Patients receive access to state of the art health care
in otherwise under served areas, such as rural communities. Telemedicine
improves collaboration among providers by sharing secure and confidential
access to electronic medical records.
Telecommunications programs enable rural communities to retain
well-educated and specialty health care professionals. In order to do so,
these programs need high-quality videoconferencing, web-based programs and
other emerging electronic technologies. OHN will enhance Oregon’s
community colleges and university systems’ current programs and expand
their abilities to develop distance technologies for health care
professional education.
The
OHN pilot program will provide the foundation for improved emergency
preparedness applications for hospitals, clinics, private practitioners,
public health, emergency management and tribal partners who currently
cannot communicate across jurisdictions during day-to-day operations and
large-scale incidents.
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Why is
Oregon receiving funds from the FCC?
To significantly
increase access to acute, primary and preventive health care in rural
America, the Federal Communications Commission on November 19, 2007,
dedicated over $417 million for the construction of 69 statewide or
regional broadband telehealth networks in 42 states and three U.S.
territories under the Rural Health Care Pilot Program (RHCPP).
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Who is involved
and/or impacted by the FCC award?
The Federal
Communication Commission’s RHCPP will support the connection of more than
6,000 public and non-profit health care providers nationwide to broadband
telehealth networks. The health care facilities participating in the Pilot
Program include: hospitals, clinics, universities and research centers,
behavioral health sites, correctional facility clinics, and community
health centers.
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When does the FCC award take
effect?
The FCC Order was
adopted November 19, 2007 and will become effective on publication in the
Federal Register.
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Where can I find more
information?
Additional information
can be found on the Telehealth Alliance of Oregon Web site
www.ortelehealth.org.
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