<I>Kathleen Ellyn/Chieftain</I><BR>John Straughan, Wallowa Memorial Hospital information technology director, checks connections on the new "leaf node" that connects the hospital by fiber optic network to the Northwest Exchange hub in Portland.

Wallowa Memorial Hospital is one of the first rural hospitals to take advantage of a new federally supported Rural Health Care Pilot Program that will result in high-speed Internet connection among hospitals, clinics and health education institutions across the country.

The program, sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission, will link the nation’s hospitals, clinics, public health offices, physicians, mental health, dental and optical clinics and health education institutions to provide better information sharing and education.

In Oregon, the program is being managed by the Oregon Health Network, which was created in 2007 with support from the legislature and the governor. The FCC awarded $417 million in funds nationwide to establish the network and OHN was the fifth-largest recipient of the grant money, garnering $20.2 million.

On Dec. 4, OHN celebrated the launch of its broadband network applications center in Beaverton. The company also reported the shipment of three “leaf nodes,” or routers, to Wallowa Memorial Hospital, Blue Mountain Community College’s Baker County center and Oregon Coast Community College in Newport.

What the connection does for Wallowa Memorial Hospital is save money and position the hospital to expand its services dramatically, said Dave Harman, administrator of the Wallowa County Health Care District.

“Prior to OHN we had a T-1 line (a dedicated phone line) with a capacity of only 1.5 megabits through the Picture Archival Computer System that connects the hospital with radiologists in Bend,” he said. “That is way too slow and we were paying $1,700 per month for it.”

Establishing a new system, however, was out of the question. “For some communities the cost of establishing the infrastructure could be as much as half a million dollars,” said OHN executive director Kim Lamb. “That’s a huge barrier, and that’s why they don’t have it.”

Now communities will get that infrastructure for free. The new connection through OHN at Wallowa Memorial Hospital will run seven times as fast (10 megabits), will cost only about $150 per month, and will link the hospital to many more services. One of the first services Wallowa Memorial will pick up is a new connection, through OHN, to the cardiac network in Spokane, Harman said. The cardiac monitoring equipment on the Wallowa County end will be paid for by a separate funding source. Hospital administrators just learned that they were awarded a nearly $400,000 USDA distance learning grant to purchase that equipment.

The true cost of the OHN broadband service would be approximately $2,200 per month for Wallowa Memorial Hospital, but OHN is able to establish the fiber optic and Ethernet infrastructure free and the FCC will absorb 85 percent of the ongoing cost for the next five years. As part of its long-range plan, OHN is also looking into ways to continue to cover some of those costs beyond the initial five years, according to Lamb. Other long-term plans are to extend the service to nursing homes, businesses, and other for-profit organizations.

Another benefit of the system is that it allows for expanded services at any time.

“We can upgrade whenever we need to,” Harman said. “When we had T-1, we had no upgrade capability at all.”

The benefit to colleges, such as Blue Mountain Community College, is that the connection will allow them to expand their academic offerings while retaining students – thereby improving local economic stability in addition to “equalizing the quality of life difference between rural and urban life,” Lamb said.

Arthur J. Hill vice president of economic development at Blue Mountain Community College, who also sits on the board of OHN, gave some examples of how that works.

“We have over a dozen allied health programs and all of these rely heavily on broadband,” he said. “Radiology and medical lab tech lessons are (already) delivered in by other schools via teleconference. Thanks to the OHN we are now bringing in two new classes at Blue Mountain and have been able to expand our existing programs in radiology and neonatal nursing.”

By offering those classes, the college retains medical students that might normally have had to move on to other colleges to complete their education. In retaining those students the community benefits in many ways, one of which is that those students go out into the community to fulfill their practicum by working in nursing homes, hospitals and doctors offices locally.

The community at large benefits as well, Hill said. “In Enterprise, Hermiston and Pendleton the hospital is the prime subscriber to OHN, but Blue Mountain has a learning center, there are other doctors, all of these people benefit from the increased broadband capacity. The hospital may be the first, the anchor business, but many others will benefit once the infrastructure is in place.”

Wind Wave Communications, the Heppner-based company doing the installation of the fiber optics, has extended the fiber optic cable down the newly constructed Medical Parkway to Golf Course Road and back into Enterprise, creating a loop so that service can be provided even if damage is done to the fiber along the original route. In addition to creating this needed redundancy for hospital service, the company has installed fiber optic cable in downtown Enterprise.

As business customers express interest, the company will eventually establish other stations along the route. Video conferencing services will also be available according to Wind Wave sales director Pat Lauritsen