Broadband fulfilling its promise
Published: 27 Jul 2004 11:50 BST
Other technology pioneers have long since seen tangible benefits.
Dr. Bruce Dunn of Clement J. Zablocki Veterans Administration hospital in Milwaukee was one of the first doctors in the country to create a "telepathology" practice serving a hospital 200 miles away. Through a broadband connection, his computer receives video images from a remote-controlled microscope in a sister hospital in Iron Mountain, Wisconsin, which he uses to diagnose cancers and other diseases in tissue samples.
Many more doctors exchange large data files such as X-ray results, which do not require real-time connections but still need high-speed networks. Hospitals have found broadband technologies to be invaluable in non-life-threatening situations as well, saving considerable labour and other resources by using it to handle medical claims, insurance processing and other administrative tasks.
The idea of health care via broadband has even extended to the home. Federally funded studies have found "dramatic" improvements for patients who could communicate with doctors through frequent videoconferences and other technologies. A Florida project serving children with diabetes recently found that patients using the videoconferencing system spent about a fifth of the time in hospital as before, saving tens of thousand of dollars.
Just east of Los Angeles, a project at El Monte Union High School shows benefits of broadband that do not involve emergency services but have had other dramatic effects.
El Monte's administrators recently got a grant from the Beaumont Foundation of America to set up wireless broadband towers on campus, providing Internet access on school grounds. But a related part of the project has secured laptop computers for children living in a nearby trailer park, and the school is now providing them with broadband access to do research and other homework.
"Schools in the low end or in the high end socioeconomically need to look the same," said Nick Salerno, an assistant superintendent with the El Monte Union High School District. "We must provide the same opportunity for everyone."
Many other broadband educational applications are transforming teaching and research. University courses are routinely recorded and put online for students who miss class or for those who cannot afford to attend full time. Boys and Girls Club of America chapters are getting live underwater video feeds from a project exploring shipwrecks on the floor of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.
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2 comments
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Perhaps possible in the USA, but unfortunately of... Anonymous -
100% valid comment,broadband is not sweeping the s... Joseph M. Soucy
