This week, we have another interview that Christopher recorded while he was at the 2019 Broadband Communities Summit in Austin, Texas. Dr. Robert Wack from Westminster, Maryland, where the town is partnering with Ting Internet, sat down for a conversation on telemedicine. As the United States’ healthcare system continues to degrade, hospitals, doctors, and other caregivers are looking for new and efficient ways to provide better care for their patients.
Broadband is a tool that healthcare professionals are already using for preventative care, consultation, and treatment from a distance. Dr. Wack and Christopher discuss some of the innovations within the healthcare industry that use connectivity, data, and human engagement. These approaches reduce costs and help patients by reducing the stress that accompanies unnecessary trips to the emergency room or can identify when a patient requires medical intervention from the security of their home.
Christopher and Dr. Wack also discuss some of the new challenges that accompany these innovations and strategies for bringing these programs to large groups of people, rather than focusing on small populations.
Dr. Wack updates us on the progress of the network deployment in Westminster and discusses the community’s Mid-Atlantic Gigabit Innovation Collaboratory (MAGIC), the nonprofit established to optimize use of the fiber network they began developing in 2014.
Read more of our coverage about Westminster and their public-private partnership with Ting.
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This show is 36 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed. You can listen to the interview on this page or visit the Community Broadband Bits page.
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Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org. Read the original here.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
