Texas needs government money to make telemedicine happen

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CONSERVATIVES CALL FOR GOVERNMENT FUNDING OF TEXAS BROADBAND: Texas Republicans don’t usually look to Lyndon Johnson for inspiration. But the need for improved broadband services in rural areas — to spread telemedicine, viewed as the next frontier of medicine — has caused some to look to the former president’s efforts to connect those same areas to the electrical grid.

“We kinda got a unique problem in rural Texas,” says Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a die-hard Trump supporter supported by the party’s rightwing fringe. “I can compare it to when electricity first became available and we had [Johnson’s] Rural Electrification Program.”

Last year, Texas lawmakers passed bills that made telemedicine legal and improved the reimbursement process to help rural counties contend with provider shortages and hospital closures, and the legislature has more expansion plans for 2019. But to get broadband you need to lay lines, and the private sector doesn’t usually see an incentive to do that in sparsely inhabited rural areas.

More than a quarter of Texas’s rural population—and 30 percent of rural areas nationwide—lack fixed broadband access. FCC’s rural broadband grant fund of $581 million doesn’t go far to addressing that problem. Pros can read Renuka Rayasam’s full story here.

... MEANWHILE, IN AUSTIN: Startup Enzyme Health has raised $1.7 million for a business that enables doctors and nurses to provide telemedicine services wherever and whenever they want. More from MedCityNews here.

Tweet of the Day: Art Walaszeck @artwalaszek More High stress associated with use of the EHR is common (70% of docs), varies by specialty (esp. problematic in primary care), and predictive of burnout. Fixing EHRs may decrease burnout. #PhysicianWellness

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A massive Obama administration investment in digital medical records passed a trial by wildfire in California last month when doctors working in tents and clinics managed to get critical information on patients evacuated from a burning hospital and nursing homes in the ruined town of Paradise. California’s success, combined with more limited progress during fall hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida, represented a long-awaited landmark in the $40 billion conversion of U.S. health records from paper to digital. Hurricane-threatened states are promising to have more robust emergency record-sharing systems up and running in time for next hurricane season. My piece is available to all readers here.

LET THEM EAT CAKE: The UK’s National Health Service has taken a punitive approach to leaving paper for electronic health records: It’s planning to ban fax machines in the NHS, according to a report over the weekend. Documents cited in The Guardian say health secretary Matt Hancock has refused to pay for the purchase of fax machines starting next month and ordered NHS to phase them out by March 2020. The Royal College of Surgeons estimates that more than 8,000 fax machines are still being used by the NHS, which runs hospitals and specialty care in Britain.

General practitioners, who are generally private concerns, have used electronic records in the UK for many years, while the NHS is currently in the process of a slow switchover. A nationwide effort was abandoned a few years ago after officials unsuccessfully spent billions of pounds. More coverage from The Guardian.

VA (MORE) OPEN FOR BUSINESS: On Friday, the agency released details on its rollout of standards-based APIs for partners to connect apps and programs to the Veterans Health Administration. The APIs, based on the FHIR standard, were discussed at a White House meeting last week on health care data interoperability.

CNN finds speeches by VA Secretary Robert Wilkie revealing his profound sympathies for the confederate cause

Wharton business school counterpoint on the impact of Amazon’s involvement with medical records

Why is Missouri so far behind on its prescription drug monitoring program?

Rural Minnesota doctors export their expertise through telemedicine

Medical record errors are common and hard to fix, CNBC finds