August 14, 2017
Broadband is having a profound impact on the medical industry by serving as the wired backbone supporting connectivity to the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). Access to broadband is critical to ensuring consistent communication between emerging medical devices as more health organizations depend on this technology to help patients monitor their health and communicate with physicians.
By providing remote monitoring solutions, IoMTs are helping collect valuable data for analytics, reduce the rate of return of patients to clinics and hospitals, save time, money and energy, and give physicians a better indication of medical needs. Large medical facilities can have three times as many connected medical devices than computers and smartphones, making fiber wired network a necessity for large medical organizations to run IoMTs without interruption.
Operating one of the largest telemedicine programs, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs had approximately, 700,000 veterans receiving medical care via tech devices in the last year. Now, the VA is expanding that program with a new tool called VA Video Connect that will operate in every VA hospital in the country. Veterans can access 300 medical providers from 50 specialties at 67 VA hospitals and clinics, and the VA Video is giving physicians a chance to focus on mental health services for veterans.
Broadband infrastructure also is important for rural communities to gain access to telemedicine services, especially when it may not be easy to reach a physician. So many lives can be positively affected through telemedicine services, which is only possible with dependable, wired broadband networks.