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Commissioner Carr Highlights FCC Focus on Telemedicine at UVA
Health System

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fcc.gov/document/commi…

WASHINGTON, D.C.—On Monday, July 2, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr visited the
University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville, Virginia. Dr. Karen Rheuban, an expert in telehealth, hosted Commissioner Carr at UVA.

The visit focused on how high-
speed broadband networks increase access to and lower the cost of healthcare, especially in
rural and low-income areas that often lack the same access to affordable healthcare options
as those living in other parts of the country.

“The current trend in telehealth is a movement from healthcare delivered inside brick-and-mortar facilities to connected care everywhere,” said Commissioner Carr. “Inside
hospitals and clinics, patients now have access to the most cutting-edge, broadband-enabled
technologies.

And the FCC has played a significant role in helping to support and promote
broadband deployments to these facilities. When patients leave the doors of those facilities,
their access to high-tech healthcare services often drops off.

Connected care technologies
are helping to fill that gap. From pediatric cardiology to opioid dependency treatment,
remote patient monitoring and mobile health apps can greatly reduce costs and improve
outcomes.

Spending time with the teams at UVA helped me learn more about the trend
toward connected care everywhere and how the FCC can help promote remote patient
monitoring and related telehealth technologies.”
Commissioner Carr began his tour at the
UVA’s Children’s Hospital,

where he
learned about their pediatric cardiology
program, which brings high-tech care to
the home. With an iPad and a Locus
Health app, daily weight, heart rate, and
oxygen levels can be tracked remotely,
which decreases the need for high-risk
pediatric patients to undergo...

ICU stays
and invasive procedures.
Commissioner Carr then headed to
UVA’s Karen S. Rheuban Center for
Telehealth, where they use connected insulin pumps and home blood sugar monitors to
improve average blood sugars for patients.

Chronic disease management accounts for about
80% of direct healthcare spending. Diabetes management is an area where remote patient
monitoring and connected care can have a big impact.

When treating a stroke, time is brain. And
for every 60 seconds a stroke goes
untreated, another two million neurons and
seven miles of brain fiber are lost. UVA’s
Telestroke team explained how connected
technologies are making a difference.

They
demoed their broadband-enabled
connection to a rural facility in Culpeper,
VA. Rather than a 45-minute transfer when
seconds matter, they start stroke treatment
immediately from remote locations. They
have helped an average of 11 patients per
month using this connection.

Commissioner Carr wrapped up the visit with a discussion of how telehealth is also
addressing the opioid epidemic, including pain management, education and psychiatry work.

UVA’s Dr. Tirouririne and Dr. Salajegheh explained how they’re using broadband
connections to bring specialist care to remote and rural communities and decreasing the use
and dependency on opiods.