FCC Approves Second Set of COVID-19 Telehealth Program Applications

The Federal Communications Commission approved an additional five funding applications for the COVID-19 Telehealth Program. Health care providers in some of the hardest hit areas like New York and Michigan will use this $3.71 million in funding to provide telehealth services during the coronavirus pandemic:

• Banyan Community Health Center, Inc., in Coral Gables (FL) was awarded $958,270 to serve 24 Medically Underserved Areas in Miami-Dade and Broward counties by providing telehealth services to approximately 2,000 low-income and highrisk patients so that patients can receive medical care at home during the pandemic.
• Health Partners of Western Ohio, based in Lima (OH) with sixteen locations in OH, was awarded $737,098 in funding to provide telehealth services targeted at lowincome patients by deploying telemedicine carts so that patients can receive medical care at 71 community locations.
• NYU Langone Health in New York (NY) was awarded $983,772 to employ telehealth in operating rooms and conference room spaces that have been converted into ICUs so doctors and health care providers can carefully monitor ICU patients from separate floors, thus magnifying the finite number of available ICU specialists, reducing exposure to the coronavirus, and maximizing the limited supply of personal protective equipment.
• St. John’s Well Child and Family Center in Los Angeles (CA) was awarded $382,331 to treat 21,000 patients in South Los Angeles and the City of Compton through remote patient monitoring, video consults, and voice consults.
• The University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor (MI) was awarded $649,000 to implement remote patient monitoring for high risk COVID-19 patients to reduce the need for hospital admissions, and to expand video visit capacity so that patients with and without COVID-19 can receive medical care at home during the pandemic.