JEFFERSON CITY, MO - MoBroadbandNow Director Damon Porter today announced that four rural Missouri hospitals will be receiving a portion of $100,000 in grants from Gov. Nixon's MoBroadbandNow initiative. The grants will allow the hospitals to provide improved telemedicine care for their patients.
"One of the very real benefits of improved broadband service in rural Missouri is in telemedicine - connecting Missourians and their physicians with specialists many miles away who can look at high-resolution images and receive other vital information on a real-time basis to help doctors treat those patients," Gov. Nixon said. "Expanded broadband accessibility between healthcare providers will mean access to quicker and more specialized care that is often life-saving for patients."
This is Round 2 of the MoBroadbandNow grant awards, bringing the total number of Missouri hospitals receiving grants to 15. The total dollar amount awarded during Rounds 1 and 2 is $362,000. Each hospital receiving a grant in this Round of the awards is a small facility containing 50 patient beds or fewer.
The four hospitals receiving the grants are:
- Harrison County Community Hospital in Bethany, a critical access hospital with a provider- based Rural Health Clinic, will receive $25,000.00 in grants to upgrade existing broadband speed to serve one critical access hospital and one rural health clinic. High-speed broadband will allow for faster digital image processing, staff efficiency, cost reduction and patient record manage-ment. The hospital will provide $7,766 in matching funds for the project.
- Iron County Hospital in Pilot Knob, a critical access hospital with a provider-based Rural Health Clinic, will receive $25,000 to upgrade existing broadband speed to serve one critical access hospital and one rural health clinic. High-speed broadband will allow for faster digital image processing, staff efficiency, cost reduction and patient record management. The hospital will provide $6,380 in matching funds for the project.
- Ste. Genevieve County Memorial Hospital in Ste. Genevieve, a critical access hospital with provider-based Rural Health Clinics, will receive $25,000 in grants to upgrade existing broadband speed to serve one critical access hospital and six rural health clinics. The hospital will provide electronic patient record management and expand cardiac telemetry services. The hospital will provide an $8,720 match.
- Freeman Neosho Hospital in Neosho, a rural hospital and emergency center for Newton and McDonald counties, will receive $25,000 in grants to upgrade existing broadband speed to serve one critical access hospital and one rural health clinic. The hospital will use increased speeds to improve hospital administration, patient record management, disaster recovery and redundancy of service. The hospital will provide a $34,459 match.
The grants, which come from a federal grant to the state of Missouri as part of its state broadband plan, will be distributed in seven installments between Dec. 1, 2012, and July 31, 2014.
Gov. Nixon launched the MoBroadbandNow initiative in 2009 to greatly expand broadband to reach more homes, businesses, schools, health care facilities, and public safety agencies. Missouri is now in the middle of seeing a total investment of more than $310 million to expand broadband throughout the state, through a combination of federal, state, local and private sector resources, including more than $192 million in competitive federal funding obtained by the state of Missouri and its private and local partners.
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