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  Today in Health it, this story is round two, $250 million of FCC Telehealth funding is available. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in Health IT a channel dedicated to keeping health IT staff current. And engaged VMware has been committed to our mission of providing relevant content to health IT professionals since the start.

They recently completed an executive study with MIT on the top Healthcare trends, shaping IT, resilience, covering how the pandemic drove unique transformation in healthcare. This is just one of the many resources they have for healthcare professionals. For this and several other great content pieces, check out vmware.com/go/healthcare.

Alright, here's today's story. Round two, 250 million FCC Telehealth funding is available. Here's what you need to know. Round two of the FCC COVID-19 telehealth program makes an additional 249.95 million in funding available to healthcare organizations. Four. Reimbursement of telecommunication services, information services, and connected devices enabling telehealth expansion.

The first thing you need to know is that the window to apply for funding, this go round is a short one. It's already underway and you must apply by May 6th. Of 2021. So you have to apply this week, quite frankly, who's entitled to the funding? The program's open to eligible healthcare provider sites that treat patients, whether located in rural or non-rural areas or US territories.

It is limited to nonprofit in public eligible healthcare providers that fall within the categories of healthcare providers in section 2 54. H seven B of the 1996 Act. Let me just give you some of these rather than you having to figure this out. Post-secondary educational institutions offering healthcare instruction, teaching hospitals and medical schools, community health centers or health centers providing healthcare to migrants, local health departments or agencies.

Community health centers, not for-profit hospitals, rural health clinics, skilled nursing facilities, or consortia of healthcare providers consisting of one or more entities falling into the seven categories. Applicants are eligible for reimbursement on telehealth purchases made after March 13th, 2020, if not already funded through the previous round of federal funds.

Distributed. More information about round two of Telehealth funding and eligibility can be found. On the Universal Service Administration company's website application notice round one applicants can still apply for round two, but the first time applicants or unfunded applicants from round one will receive a competitive advantage through the awarding bonus points process.

I'm sure it's really complicated, but in essence what they're saying is if you've already applied and you have not been granted the funding that that will get . Push to the front of the line, I guess is what they're saying. Here's some example of eligible services and connected devices, telecommunication services and broadband connectivity services, voice services for healthcare providers or their patients information services, internet connectivity services for healthcare providers.

Or their patients remote patient monitoring platforms and services. Patient reported outcome platforms, store and forward services such as asynchronous transfer or patient images and data for interpretation by a physician. Platforms and services to provide synchronous video consultation connected devices, equipment, tablets, smartphones, and connected devices to receive connected care services at home.

Broadband enabled blood pressure monitors, pulse oximeters. You get the picture for patients or healthcare provider use or tele medicine kiosks, carts for healthcare provider sites. I took a lot of this from uh, an email I got from Sirius Healthcare who's a sponsor of this weekend Health it, and they offer some services to help organizations to.

Bring all this stuff together. My So what for this is, this is more of a public service announcement than anything. If you've done anything with regard to telehealth and you've all done something around telehealth and you haven't put in an application for the FCC funding, you should do that. And even if you have before and you have some additional things.

That you unfunded, you should put this in. Take the time. There's a fair amount of money out there to support these initiatives. These are important initiatives and you should make the effort to go after this money, I believe. Alright, that's all for today. If you know of someone that might benefit from our channel, please forward them a note.

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Thanks for listening. That's all for now.