September 2010

Recovery Act investments in health information technology are making headway in improving patient care and reducing medical errors, according to a new White House report.

The report, unveiled by Vice President Joe Biden in Washington Tuesday, details the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which funneled more than $100 billion to various programs, including $20 billion in healthcare information technology. "Approximately $2 billion is being spent largely to support ready hospitals, providers, states and other parties to adopt health IT," the report states. "The remaining funds will be used to incentivize physicians and providers to adopt health IT in 2011 and beyond."

Expanding adoption of broadband, which received a $6.9 billion boost under the stimulus law, will enable the adoption of electronic health-record systems, e-prescribing, and e-care, the report stated. The Obama administration projects that e-prescribing technology alone will help prevent 10 million outpatient medication errors by 2013. Broadband also allows for round-the-clock remote monitoring via wireless aids such as digital cameras and text messaging and telemonitoring services. The Veterans Affairs Department, for example, "has dramatically decreased unnecessary hospitalizations through a wide-ranging effort to help veterans manage chronic conditions at home" by using remote monitoring tools.

On August 24, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said that some people still aren't treating broadband as a national priority, and pointed to the recent decision on the FCC's annual broadband access report as an example. He conceded that participants at a broadband summit would be expected to agree that broadband is a priority, but said: "I do want you to know that is not the uniform opinion in Washington or in our state governments."

Chairman Genachowski said that in contrast to past broadband reports, in which the FCC looked at broadband and said, "yes, everything's fine," he came to a far different conclusion after looking at the most recent report with his staff. "I said 'this is crazy.' We see how other countries are moving, we see the challenges, the answer is 'No,'" Chairman Genachowski said, adding that one would have thought that conclusion would have been "unanimous and without criticism....That was a 3-2 vote." The conclusion was criticized by many in industry as well as the dissenting commissioners, who said they were troubled by the failing grade. "[P]people in this room understand about the importance of broadband to small businesses, to our economy, to healthcare and public safety...[but] we're in the early innings in terms of having it really become a national priority," the chairman said, adding that more people have to understand that standing still is moving backwards.

Broadband adoption in Washington, DC toes the line -- not party lines, but rather the lines of the district's eight wards. In well-to-do neighborhoods located in the northwest, more than 90 percent of residents are connected to high-speed Internet access, according to a 2009 study by the district's technology office. But to the southeast, in poorer communities, only 36 to 40 percent of people can access broadband. There's literally a digital divide that splits Washington, DC's geography.

Bryan Sivak, who has been Washington, DC's chief technology officer since last October, leads a coordinated effort to close that disparity -- an effort that will be one of his office's main missions, he said. "Some might say I'm evangelical about addressing the digital divide," he added. In a program Sivak believes is unique in scope, the district has assembled a three-pronged strategy that addresses the major challenges of providing and sustaining universal broadband to citizens: cost, public education and access to technology. All three obstacles are being addressed with separate stimulus grants awarded by the federal government.

The US Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld federal government auctions of about $33 billion of wireless spectrum, saying it would be "imprudent and unfair" to undo them even though some rules governing them were invalid.

The ruling allows Verizon, T-Mobile and others to keep billions of dollars of licenses they had won in the auctions, which took place between 2006 and 2008. The auction process had been challenged by Council Tree Communications, Bethel Native Corp and the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, which contended that Federal Communications Commission rules for the auctions were unfair to smaller service providers. The FCC had offered credits to smaller providers of as much as 35 percent to help them to compete for licenses. However, it also adopted rules to limit the ability of these providers to team up with larger rivals, or sell their credits to those rivals for quick profits. According to the appeals court, companies that qualified for credits comprised 113 of the 205 winning bidders, but won only about 3.2 percent of the licenses' total value. In contrast, in auctions that preceded adoption of the rules, qualifying bidders had won about 70 percent of the licenses by dollar value, the court said. In its 53-page ruling, the Third Circuit struck down two rules designed to limit or dissuade small carriers from selling their spectrum capacity, and upheld a third.