Officials talk broadband expansion and health care in Pittsfield

By Patrick Donges

Pittsfield, MA – September 12, members of the local health care community and representatives from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, or MBI, and Massachusetts e-Health Institute, or MeHI, met at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield for a conversation about how increased broadband access could improve the cost and quality of health care.

The groups convened at the request of State Senator Benjamin Downing, who represents all of the Berkshires and parts of Hampden and Franklin Counties, including areas with limited or nonexistent broadband access; here's Downing.

"Along with access to high speed internet in small communities, probably the only other issue that continues to come up, no matter where I am, is the cost of health care."

"We have the opportunity to be a showcase for how we solve acute access to the internet. While we're doing that, how do we make sure that we set up a network in a way that allows us to create a more patient centered health care system, and at the same point providing care in the most efficient and effective way possible?"

Jim Brennan, a clinical relationship manager with MeHI, the semi-public agency tasked with building out the state's electronic health records systems, noted that while about 70 percent of providers in the state already operate with electronic records, that number is dramatically lower in the west.

"About a third of the providers in our program have no electronic system at all for health records. Now that's across the whole commonwealth; when you get west of Worchester that chart tends to flip-flop."

Richard Shoup, director of MeHI and health information technology coordinator for the state concurred.

"The western part of the state has not enjoyed the same level of support. Broadband is going to provide the ability for hospitals, physician practices, patients, and other care providers to be able to coordinate care and to make sure that those patients have the best possible outcomes."

Shoup said it would be equally important to allow patients to access their own records as it is doctors across the state to access information on patients, allowing them to become more involved in their own care.

"At the end of the day it's critically important that patients are working as partners with they're providers so that they can take responsibility for their care."

MeHI's goal is to build an e-records network that will be able to connect networks already in place or under development across the state, but before those networks can become fully integrated statewide the physical broadband infrastructure must be completed.

Enter MBI, who began construction this summer on the MassBroadband 123 "middle mile" fiber-optic network; approximately 1,300 miles of cable with direct connections to over 1,400 schools, public safety buildings, and hospitals, including Berkshire Medical Center. Jason Whittet is MBI's deputy director.

"Technology is always moving forward, and what we don't want to have happen is to build something and have it be the equivalent of dial-up just a couple of years down the road, so we're trying to build a system that's going to be great for the next 20 to 30 years."

Bill Young, Chief Information Officer at Berkshire Health Systems, said that the switch to e-records would be a "journey" all providers will have to go on over what could be the next decade as accessibility improves, citing one major variable in the near future.

"I don't know for sure, I'm not sure anyone in this room knows for sure what will change with health care reform; but I think we do know that IT and the ability to share IT systems will be part of that."

As per their receipt of over $45 million in federal funding for the project, MBI must complete the MassBroadband 123 network by 2013, a goal Whittet said they are on pace to meet.

Several major measures passed as part of the 2010 federal health reform, including monetary penalties for those who do not have health insurance, are scheduled to go into effect beginning in 2014.