By Joseph Bustos September 08, 2020 05:00 AM , Updated September 08, 2020 09:25 AM
More than $50 million worth of broadband expansion projects will start this month in 23 counties around the state to help close the internet service gap exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The shovel-ready projects are being made possible, in part, with funding from the CARES Act, federal coronavirus aid that must be spent by the end of the year. The dollars will help internet providers expand service to areas where it may take longer to turn a profit.
As of Thursday, the Office of Regulatory Staff, a state agency tasked with providing internet connections to needy state residents during the pandemic, has approved 71 projects to expand broadband in 23 counties, including Orangeburg, Lancaster, Lexington and Fairfield counties. The agency will reimburse broadband companies 50% of the project costs, said Nanette Edwards the director of ORS.
“What they’ve done is they’ve tried to pick up areas where they knew they could do it quickly. I think that’s why you see it dispersed,” Edwards said.
The broadband projects are a good start, but also a drop in the bucket toward closing the state’s broadband access gap. There are 650,000 South Carolinians and 180,000 households in the state without high-speed internet access. One broadband expert in the state says it would cost $800 million to connect the rest of the households in the state without broadband access. The Buzz on SC Politics
ORS expects contractors to begin the small expansion projects this month and complete them before the end of the year, before the Dec. 31 deadline for spending CARES Act money.
And ORS did not have the number of households that are expected to have broadband access immediately available after the projects are complete.
The agency is working to create a broadband map to determine its own estimate of what it would take to completely build out broadband in the state, but acknowledged that the money being spent now is small.
“I think it’s really hard to give it a concrete number to say this is what it’s really going to cost to do a complete build out of the state of South Carolina to every structure that’s capable of having internet,” Edwards said.
Read more here: https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article245472045.html#storylink=cpy
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has issued a proposed rule that aims to allow Medicare coverage for “breakthrough devices,” giving providers and patients access to cutting-edge telemedicine and mHealth tools.
– Federal officials are proposing to expand Medicare coverage for new telemedicine and mHealth technologies classified as “breakthrough medical devices.”
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a proposed rule this week that aims to cut the lengthy review process for what are considered cutting-edge devices, giving Medicare beneficiaries and their care providers the freedom to use the technology while the US Food and Drug Administration reviews the products for long-term approval.
“For new technologies, CMS coverage approval has been a chicken and egg issue,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a press release. “Innovators had to prove their technologies were appropriate for seniors, but that was almost impossible since the technology was not yet covered by Medicare and thus widely used enough to demonstrate their suitability for Medicare beneficiaries. These efforts will ensure seniors get access to the latest technologies while lowering costs for innovators.”
The proposed rule could prompt healthcare providers to invest more time and energy in telehealth and remote patient monitoring programs that make use of the new technology to improve patient care in the home setting, particularly for those living with chronic diseases.
The proposed Medicare Coverage of Innovative Technology (MCIT) pathway would allow Medicare coverage for FDA-designated breakthrough devices on the same day that the FDA provides market authorization – which occurs after 510(k) premarket notification, De Novo request or premarket approval application – for those devices. The coverage would last for four years, after which the FDA would review the technology.
The order also covers breakthrough devices classified for two years prior to the date this rule becomes effective.
“A breakthrough device must provide for more effective treatment or diagnosis of a life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating human disease or condition and must also meet at least one part of a second criterion, such as by being a ‘breakthrough technology’ or offering a treatment option when no other cleared or approved alternatives exist,” CMS said in an accompanying fact sheet. “For beneficiaries impacted by these diseases, MCIT will provide assurance that they will have access to the latest breakthrough medical devices to treat their condition, provided the devices have a Medicare benefit category.”
“We believe 4 years of Medicare coverage will encourage manufacturers to voluntarily develop evidence to show these treatments improve the health of Medicare patients,” the agency added. “This time period for coverage would allow clinical studies with Medicare patients to be completed while providing broad immediate access and fostering innovation. When MCIT coverage sunsets, manufacturers would have all current coverage options available such as a National Coverage Determination (NCD), one or more Local Coverage Determinations (LCD), and claim by claim decisions.”
The rule would also clarify how CMS covers new telemedicine and mHealth technology, by codifying the definition of “reasonable and necessary” for the Medicare population. Under the proposed definition the device must be (1) safe and effective, (2) not experimental or investigational, and (3) appropriate for use by Medicare patients.
Officials said the new rule might encourage connected health companies to develop clinical studies with providers and Medicare patients to prove the long-term value of their products prior to the end of the four-year period.
Public comments on the proposed rule will be accepted through November 2.
The proposal drew positive support from The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), a Washington DC-based trade association.
“In order to incentivize innovative medical breakthroughs, the federal government must ensure those breakthrough technologies are covered by Medicare,” AdvaMed President and CEO Scott Whitaker said in a press release. “We are pleased that this proposed rule gets us closer to this goal as it would help ensure the patients who need these innovative technologies have access to them.”
“CMS’ proposal complements provisions in several recent Medicare rules that have enhanced new technology add-on payments (NTAP) and transitional pass through (TPT) payments for FDA-designated breakthrough technologies,” added John Liddicoat, MD, executive vice president and president of the Americas Region for Medtronic, an AdvaMed member and developer of mHealth tools and platforms for people living with diabetes. “While we are still reviewing the proposed rules to understand their full impact, it appears that combined, these rules will go a long way toward modernizing payment and coverage of transformational medical technologies, incentivizing innovation, and most importantly, improving patient care by ensuring Medicare beneficiary access to these new therapies.”
An initiative launched by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2015 is set to unveil a set of standards aimed at measuring the effectiveness of pediatric telehealth programs across the country.
– A program launched in 2015 to study pediatric telehealth services has unveiled a set of standards aimed at improving hospital programs across the country.
The Supporting Pediatric Research on Outcomes and Utilization of Telehealth (SPROUT) program, developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), is set to publish a paper in Pediatrics that lays out the guidelines for analyzing the effectiveness of pediatric telehealth programs.
The article was made available for prepublication release due to urgency of evaluating connected health programs in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which has seen telehealth use skyrocket. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) for example, saw daily telehealth visits jump from as many as 10 to more than 1,500, while the Ann & Robert Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago trained more than 800 providers in just a few weeks to handle the surge.
“Now is a critical opportunity to systematically evaluate telehealth care delivery, identify patient cohorts who can benefit, and explore ways to incorporate telehealth into patient care workflows,” the article, authored by John Chuo, MD, MS, IA, and Scott Lorch, MD, MSCE, of CHOP and the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and Michelle Macy, MD, MS, of Northwestern University, states. “This knowledge will evolve our healthcare system to improve how care is delivered now and during crises.”
“While a few measurement standards exist to guide the assessment of telehealth’s impact on care delivered, current literature lacks a unified approach to evaluate telehealth in pediatric healthcare delivery,” Chuo and his colleagues note.
The article lays out a guide to telehealth evaluation called the STEM (SPROUT Telehealth Evaluation and Measurement) profile, which pulls together concepts developed by the National Quality Forum (NQF), World Health Organization (WHO) and Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ). From that work, the STEM profile outlines four measurement domains: health outcomes; health delivery – quality and cost; experience; and program implementation and key performance indicators.
“Findings from rigorous telehealth program evaluation in these areas can inform data driven reimbursement and policy changes that encourages appropriate telehealth use, especially amidst the explosion of telehealth services associated with the COVID pandemic,” the paper concludes.
The STEM profile comes out of a 2019 initiative by SPROUT to create a national database for pediatric telehealth research and best practices. Spearheaded by the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), one of two federally recognized telehealth centers of excellence and funded by a $3.6 million federal grant, the initiative aims to support “the development of telehealth research efforts, metric development, identification of best practices and the development of collaborative policy and advocacy materials” specific to pediatric programs.
“This is a huge step forward in the development of safe and impactful telehealth programs across the country,” S. David McSwain, MD, a physician with MUSC Children’s Health, associate professor of pediatric critical care and chief medical information officer who helped develop the program, said at the time. “Academic research into the real impact of telehealth services is a critical component of developing and growing programs with the greatest potential to improve our health care system. Many physicians and other health care providers are hesitant about incorporating telehealth into their practices because it’s difficult to separate the theoretical benefits from the real value.”
“Research into the real impact of telehealth services is a critical part of developing and growing programs with the greatest potential to improve our health care system,” he added. “Many doctors and other health care providers are hesitant about incorporating telehealth into their practices because it’s difficult to separate the theoretical benefits from the real value.”
Faced with the need to improve patient satisfaction and reduce unnecessary delays in care, hospitals and medical practices are using telehealth and mHealth tools to create a virtual waiting room.
– With the COVID-19 crisis putting the kibosh on crowds, hospitals are turning to telehealth and mHealth to take the wait out of healthcare.
The crowded, clamorous, stuffy, sniffly waiting room has long been the scourge of healthcare, a sign of both inconvenienced patients and overworked providers. It’s here that patients are asked to announce their presence, fill out forms and check their insurance, while staff sort through the data to match them to the right provider at the right time slot.
Prodded by the pandemic, health systems are now using mHealth apps, online portals and telehealth platforms to handle those administrative tasks, so that a patient arriving at the hospital or doctor’s office is seen and treated as quickly as possible.
“When you think of healthcare from the perspective of a claim, there’s a lot of hands touching the data,” says Jay Roszhart, MHA, FACHE, president of the Memorial Health System Ambulatory Group, rolling off a list of services that includes scheduling, registration, check-in, insurance verification, coding, billing and appointment reminders – all potentially handled by a different person or department. “That’s just an incredible number of hands in the pot.”
To improve that process, the Illinois-based health system recently launched a virtual waiting room, complete with AI-powered chatbots that help both patient and provider collect and sort all that data before the patient sets foot in a doctor’s office.
“When you’re dealing with (a pandemic), one of the things you realize very quickly is that you have these waiting rooms where people congregate … and fill out forms,” Roszhart says. “That really is not the ideal experience and it certainly isn’t a safe experience.”
Roszhart says a connected health platform that encompasses several tools – including chatbots, apps and portals – “takes away the mundane and repeatable tasks” that dominate the waiting room and delay care, not to mention taking time away from doctors and nurses who’d rather be dealing with patients than dealing with paperwork.
“And you’re making the experience much more pleasant for the patient,” he adds.
Memorial Health is partnering with California-based LifeLink on the telehealth platform, which uses chatbots to guide the conversation between patient and doctor’s office. LifeLink is one of dozens of companies in the space, offering virtual services to health systems, hospitals, clinics, practices and doctor’s offices looking to digitize all the tasks that take place before the actual doctor-patient encounter.
The opportunities are numerous. A medical practice or clinic that can push these services online enables patients to check in virtually and arrive at the exact time that they’re scheduled to meet with a doctor, with all the clinical and insurance information automatically added to the medical record. A hospital or urgent care clinic, meanwhile, can use the platform to speed up care coordination, making sure the right doctors are in place to treat patients coming through the ER.
These services have come under the spotlight during the COVID-19 crisis, when many hospitals have restricted access to their ERs and smaller clinics and practices have closed their waiting rooms. Faced with the need to diagnose and treat patients with the minimum of in-person interaction, they’re using telehealth and mHealth tools to triage patients outside the hospital, even in the home.
On the back end, these platforms need to be interoperable, so that the right information is connected to the right patient at the point of care. On the front end, the technology needs to be easy to use, intuitive and friendly, so that the patient feels welcome.
“You have to design this to give patients a pleasant experience,” says Roszhart.
He says Memorial Health chose a chatbot with the idea of making the process more human, “with the development of a conversation that doesn’t sound like you’re talking to a robot.” The platform must also integrate with other services at key points in the conversation to enter data and kick back to a live person when help is needed.
While the health system is still working to get the platform up and running, Roszhart says success will be measured by patient engagement – how many complete the process, where do people drop out and ask for help, how they feel about the process – and cost savings. And while that latter metric might refer to the fewer number of staff needed to handle these administrative duties, he sees this as an opportunity to train them in other departments.
Would a virtual waiting room, then, eliminate the need for the physical waiting room?
That may be the goal, Roszhart says, but it’s a long ways off.
“Healthcare’s insistence on maintaining the status quo … has really hurt our ability to modernize our practice,” he points out. In addition, there will always be a percentage of the population that prefers, out of habit or familiarity, to avoid technology and sit in a waiting room.
For the time being, Memorial Health has a waiting room concept that caters to every whim. Those who prefer to do everything online will be able to do so, while others can request to have their documents e-mailed or mailed to them, or even brought out to their car in the parking lot.
Eventually, Roszhart envisions a waiting room much more inviting than the typical room with old furniture and magazines and the occasional fish tank and water cooler. He sees a space offering health and wellness resources and personalized care experiences.
“I see the physical space of a primary care office being entirely different,” he says.
– The coronavirus pandemic is helping to shine the spotlight on the use of telehealth and mHealth to improve care coordination in places ranging from a patient’s home to an accident scene.
With COVID-19 patients, providers are using a teletriage platform to diagnose patients at home and develop care management plans that can evolve into remote patient monitoring programs. These same tools have been used by first responders, meanwhile, to improve care coordination in the field, reducing ER transports and improving care outcomes for people who spend a lot of time going to and from the hospital.
“First responders have a great opportunity to use telehealth in ways that we really haven’t seen before,” says Carl Marci, chief medical officer for Ready, a two-year-old provider of mobile healthcare services that has seen business skyrocket during the coronavirus. “We’re redefining the house call for a whole generation who doesn’t even know what a house call is.”
Originally created to help communities, businesses and other organizations dispatch care providers to the home or other locations for non-emergency medical issues, the company launched a “COVID-19 fast lane” service to screen patients suspected of having the virus at home. They’re now partnering with municipal authorities in locations like New York, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Washington DC, Reno and New Orleans (where they work with Ochsner Health).
“This model of care is ideal” for a pandemic, says Marci.
Beyond COVID-19, Marci touts the success of programs with hospitals and community health centers to bring care to the homes of people with multiple chronic conditions – sometimes called “frequent flyers” for the amount of time they spend in hospitals. These mobile integrated health programs, he says, can reduce ED transports by as much as 50 percent by focusing on health and wellness and addressing the social determinants that create health issues.
“You’re building relationships with people” who often don’t see those types of interactions in the emergency room, he points out. “You’re helping people to understand how to take better care of themselves and how to decide when to go to the ER and when there’s a better way” of accessing care.
That’s especially important during the COVID-19 crisis, he says, when people are avoiding the ER out of fear of the virus and aren’t getting the care they need – or they’re going to the ER and unnecessarily putting their lives at risk. In New Orleans, for example, a survey found that some 70 percent of the people served by Ready would have otherwise headed to the hospital.
“This is a new way of delivering care for a lot of people,” says Marci, who’s now fostering a direct-to-consumer service line and envisions future programs that address mental health, pediatric and maternity concerns.
Mobile integrated health programs, which focus on bringing healthcare and other services to the home to improve health and wellness and reduce unnecessary 911 calls and doctor’s office visits, have been around for a few years. COVID-19 has given them more of a spotlight, as health systems look to reduce traffic in the hospital while still providing chronic care management.
In Pueblo, CO, Parkview Medical Center launched a partnership with the Pueblo Fire Department to create Directing Others to Services, of DOTS. The hospital-funded community paramedicine program, which identifies and provides home-based care for frequent flyers, has halved 911 calls – all but eliminating unnecessary transports – and saving the health system thousands of dollars.
“What we’re finding is that people aren’t connected to resources in their community,” says Kelly Firestone, Parkview’s community Risk reduction coordinator. “We find the barriers that exist in their lives and we break through those barriers.”
Firestone, who visits the homes of recently discharged patients identified as ideal candidates for DOTS, sees many different barriers to care, from transportation issues to an unhealthy or challenging home life.
“These problems aren’t being fixed in the emergency room,” she says.
Kelea Nardini, Parkview’s assistant vice president of quality and post-acute care, says the program helps these patients find the resources they need to maintain a healthier lifestyle at home. That often includes access to primary care providers, pharmacies and social workers, and soon will include telehealth access to substance abuse counselors, mental health counselors and other care providers.
“We’re a community-based care transition program, with the emphasis on community,” she says. “We take care of our community.”
They point out that DOTS, which was launched in 2015, was originally intended to last just three months, but they found that each patient’s needs are very different and have to be addressed as such – one person might need just one or two visits, while another might need frequent check-ups for six or nine months.
“We know these people, and who does what they say they’re going to do?” Firestone says.
Pueblo Fire Chief Barb Huber says the program slowed down a bit when COVID-19 surfaced just because no one knew how to manage it in the midst of a pandemic. They quickly realized, however, that the program would be even more important to seniors and those with ongoing care needs who couldn’t venture outdoors or were scared of doing so.
“The message is critical right now that people still do need to take care of themselves,” she says. “They still need to see their doctor. And we have a program here that is a critical part to the community because it serves that need.”
Giving Mobile Integrated Health a National Platform
While the pandemic has allowed more communities to experiment with mobile integrated health programs, it has also highlighted the challenges those programs face – particularly around federal recognition and funding.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recognized that need when it introduced the Emergency Triage, Treat and Transport (E3) payment model in late 2019. CMS had planned to enroll some 200 healthcare providers, including health systems and EMS providers, in the program, to study how connected health tools could be used to reduce unnecessary 911 transports and improve care coordination for Medicare beneficiaries.
CMS put a hold on that program when COVID-19 took over, but some say it was flawed from the start, and needs to be redesigned.
“Is this really a value-based care model?” asks Jonathan Feit, co-founder and CEO of Beyond Lucid Technologies, a develop of mHealth technology for EMS providers. “They focused on the how but left out the why, which is the most important part.”
Feit, whose company has been partnering with communities across the country to improve EMS response and care coordination during the pandemic, says federal support has focused on the idea of better managing transportation for patients.
“That’s a travel-based model,” he says. “They want to know where I took you instead of why I took you there or how did I do.”
Feit says CMS has to understand the root causes for shifting transports away from the ER, and that delves into examining what factors lead up to a 911 call and what healthcare resources can be used to avoid those calls and better serve patients after they’ve made the call.
“They have to recognize that EMS is not just a first responder but an extension of the health system,” he says.
With COVID-19 closing or restricting many hospitals and clinics, many health systems and EMS providers have practically been forced to look at other ways to help patients in need of care. If the ER is filled with coronavirus patients or closed, there has to be an alternate route to care. That’s where mobile integrated health comes into play.
“COVID-19 is a catalyst,” Feit says. “The virus has forced people to challenge their assumptions in ways that they’ve never done before.”
That, he says, may lead to further refinements in the mobile integrated health model, and maybe even scrapping the E3 program in favor of a better model, based on lessons learned from COVID-19.
Feit sees syndrome surveillance and chronic care management as community paramedicine 2.0. On the horizon, he says, will be a model – community paramedicine 3.0 – that addresses and even bigger need in healthcare: mental health and substance abuse.
Two North schools will receive high-speed Internet access with the help of federal coronavirus relief money.
Aiken Electric Cooperative will receive $151,955 to construct and extend fiber cable from its network to the North Middle/High School and North Elementary School as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act Coronavirus Relief Fund.
Construction will begin Oct. 1, with installation complete by the end of December, according to the cooperative’s application submitted to the S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff.
The ORS is responsible for administering the CARES Act money as part of the state’s Broadband Infrastructure Program.
McCall-Thomas Engineering will provide the design and construction services for the project.
The broadband project will bring 1 gigabyte speed to the schools and will aim to offset some of the technological challenges that have come to light due to the coronavirus in the areas of education.
“Most, if not all, school systems in S.C. are allowing parents to select either ‘in school’ or ‘distance learning’ for their children,” the cooperative wrote in its application for the funding. “Having the ability for the teacher to provide ‘distance learning’ while at the same time providing ‘in school’ learning allows students a similar learning experience.”
The S.C. General Assembly and Gov. Henry McMaster approved spending about $50 million of CARES Act funds for the broadband program.
Of that total, $20 million was budgeted for the ongoing Online Learning Initiative, and $29.7 million was allocated to support broadband infrastructure expansion.
The state’s broadband program was created to provide high-speed broadband internet access to communities or households hindered in their ability to respond to the challenges of COVID-19 due to a lack of broadband.
The Aiken Electric project is among 81 submitted by 13 broadband service providers across the state and tentatively approved by ORS. The projects cover 29 counties and total $26 million.
The broadband infrastructure program could bring service to approximately 27,994 homes and 771 businesses, supplementing industry investment with federal CARES Act funding. Based on the applications received, the average federal CARES Act funding is approximately $884 per home and business.
Tele consultation may not be a silver bullet for all COVID-19 related problems but it will help hospitals and doctors to continue with patient consultations anytime – anywhere, improving the hospital’s image and at the same time maintaining a steady revenue stream
The concept of tele consultation has been around for a while, but its use was extremely limited or almost no-existent in regular doctor and patient interactions. But the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything and now it has become the platform for choice.
Today physical distancing measures are of the utmost importance, even while regular consultations, especially for life style diseases, senior citizens, and specifically for those having heart diseases, high / low BP, diabetes, and other ailments, cannot be missed.
Consultations in hospitals substantially increases the possibility of infections for doctors as well as patients. For hospitals, it adds various overheads in terms of mandating the use of PPEs for everyone attending patients, additional sanitisation of hospital buildings/consulting rooms, patients’ pre-health check ups, and much more. These factors add significant costs, reduce productivity and burdens hospitals to the point of break down.
Tele consultation may not be a silver bullet for all these problems but it will help hospitals and doctors to continue with patient consultations anytime – anywhere, improving the hospital’s image and at the same time maintaining a steady revenue stream.
SoftLink TeleHealth is a revolutionary platform that can work in tandem with HIMS, PACS, or as an independent TeleHealth solution. It enables consultation between patient and primary care physician or a specialist without a physical meeting. As a fully integrated platform, the consulting doctor will have access to patient records with charts, vitals, images, and results of diagnostic tests before the consultation, putting doctors in an informed position to offer the best advice. SoftLink TeleHealth Platform is a cloud-based solution that can be used “Anytime Anywhere” with a baseline internet connectivity such as a 3G cellular network.
Tele consultation will not replace the need to visit hospitals completely in foreseeable future as some basic investigations and physical check is not possible but it is a great blessing when physical meetings are not an option for patients and doctors. There is a possibility that in future wearables will be able to collect certain clinical parameters and add further value to the telehealth proposition but affordability for masses may become a concern.
All in all, industry experts observe that tele health has made serious inroads in patient care and it is definitely here to stay.
By Lindsay Street, Statehouse correspondent | South Carolina’s legislators will begin a flurry of activity starting Aug. 24 with a meeting of the state budget’s revenue forecasters.
They are expected to answer the ultimate budget questions of how exactly the pandemic impacted the state’s biggest revenue year in history, how much of the projected surplus is still available, and what exactly could the next 22 months look like in this fiscal year.
Those questions are expected to have answers during a 1 p.m. Aug. 24 meeting of the S.C. Board of Economic Advisors, the state budget’s revenue forecasters.
The meeting will take place physically at South Carolina Educational Television’s Bank of America room at 1041 George Rogers Blvd. The public has been invited to join the meeting virtually here or via call-in at 571-317-3112, access code 849-535-589. For questions about the meeting, call 843-734-2265.
House Equitable Justice committee to meet Aug. 25-26. A newly-formed House committee formed in light of racial justice and policing calls around the nation will convene three times next week: 10 a.m. Aug. 25 on sentencing reform, 1:30 p.m. Aug. 25 on law enforcement training and accountability, and 10 a.m. Aug. 26 on criminal laws. All meetings take place in room 110 of the Blatt building on Statehouse grounds in Columbia.
House Ways and Means panel meets on CARES Act funding.The House CARES Act Ad Hoc Committee will discuss updates to federal pandemic aid spending so far in the state and further expected expenses beginning next week. Meetings, to be held virtually, are at 2 p.m. on Aug. 26, Sept. 2 and Sept. 9. See the agenda here.
Senate reconvenes Sept. 2 on voting. South Carolina’s Senate will meet Sept. 2 to address early voting, according to an Aug. 17 statement from Senate President Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney. He said while it is unclear “what the situation will be like in November,” the state should prepare now for “safe and secure voting.” Peeler’s announcement did not detail what measures the Senate will consider. Earlier this year, the legislature allowed the expansion of absentee voting in the state ahead of the June primaries amid the coronavirus pandemic, but did not expand that for any other elections. In recent weeks, more have pushed for the state to again expand absentee rules. Those who have joined the call to expand absentee voting have included Peeler, House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Hartsville, and leaders of the S.C. Association of Registration and Election Officials.
Related: Lucas, Peeler trying to stop federal intervention into voting questions. Read more.
Senate Finance to meet in early September. A schedule has yet to be released to the public yet, but the Senate Finance Committee staff has confirmed the committee will begin meeting virtually via Zoom around the first of September and over six meetings to discuss the 2020-2021 budget. Check back here for meeting announcements.
In other news:
Keep an eye on the tropics over the weekend. Tropical Depression 13 appears unlucky, depending on all the things hurricanes depend on. A static cone image released the morning of Aug. 21 by the National Hurricane Center shows the storm strengthening to tropical storm-status by Saturday and potentially reaching hurricane-status by Tuesday along the west coast of the Florida peninsula. There is another storm vying for name-status, Tropical Depression 14 (which is expected to remain in the Gulf of Mexico), so it is unclear which storm will get the name Laura or Marco should they both continue to increase in intensity as expected.
Post Office frustrations aired in S.C. U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn held a press conference Tuesday decrying changes to the U.S. Postal Service, which were seen as disproportionately impacting rural Americans and potentially causing mailed-in ballots for the Nov. 3 election to go uncounted. That same day, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced retail hours won’t change, no mail processing facilities will close, overtime for workers will be approved, and mail processing equipment and collection boxes will remain in place. But it was unclear whether moves ahead of that decision will remain in place — and some, like chicken producers in Maine, are reporting delays impacting businesses. DeJoy was to testify today at the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
ORS approves $26.1M in broadband spending. As part of the broadband infrastructure component of the CARES Act, the S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS) has approved the funding of 81 applications submitted by 13 Broadband Service Providers. The move will spend $26.1 million of the $50 million appropriated for expanding internet access in the state. According to ORS, the infrastructure expansion will make high-speed broadband available to 27,994 homes, 771 businesses, and other entities like schools and health care facilities in unserved areas. Projects must be completed no later than Dec. 18.
S.C. Supreme Court to hear case over private school grant program. The S.C. Supreme Court agreed this week to hear arguments in the lawsuit over McMaster’s decision to spend $32 million in federal coronavirus aid on grants to help students afford private school tuition. Read more.
Brittain wins GOP nomination for Horry Co. House seat. Case Brittain of Myrtle Beach earned more than 70 percent of the vote in a special primary election for House District 107 Tuesday against his GOP foe to replace Republican Rep. Alan Clemmons, who unexpectedly resigned earlier this summer. Brittain faces Democratic candidate Tony Cahill and Libertarian candidate William Dettmering III in the Nov. 3 election.
S.C. top attorney seeks S.C. high court opinion on law. S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson asked the state’s Supreme Court last week to determine whether the state’s monument protection law, the Heritage Act, is constitutional. He asked the court to weigh in on a lawsuit filed by the widow of state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, who is suing to overturn the law passed in 2000 that protects monuments, like those honoring Civil War-era generals or the Confederate battle flag, on public grounds from removal. Read more.
A portion of the Coronavirus Relief Fund will pay for the expansion to increase capacity for distance learning, telework, or telehealth, according to SC Office of Regulatory Staff.
“The faster your internet connection, the more data you can transmit over that connection in a given period of time,” the ORS website explains. “With the recent pandemic, the internet has become even more important as an access point for education, telehealth, and other crucial activities of daily living.”
Many of the 550 areas identified as “unserved and impacted by COVID-19” are located in rural parts of the state.
“With those people being restricted to their homes over the last five months, not being able to be properly educated or receive healthcare or even be able to work, again all of America has seen a necessity to be able to provide internet services to those people,” Director of Safety, Transportation and Telecommunications Tom Allen said. “This is something that’s been talked about for decades now.”
The coronavirus pandemic has served as the gateway for funding. In total, 182,294 households were identified in SC to be without high-speed, affordable internet access. That includes about 10,000 households in the Tri-county area. However, officials say not every household will be included in this first round of expansions.
“We are making progress. We are taking steps to get people connected in South Carolina, and this is just what I think is going to be the first of many steps,” Allen said. “Once the shovels go in the ground and the service is delivered, I believe the leaders of the state are going to be even more motivated to be able to expand service throughout South Carolina.”
So far, fourteen vendors have submitted applications to the Office of Regulatory Staff to provide broadband support.
The list includes Home Telecom, Spectrum, and TruVista Communications, Inc. among others.
“The areas identified are THE areas South Carolina needs developed going forward. This piece of CARES Act funding was never going to be enough to complete the job or even get it halfway there. Much more funding is needed for that to become a reality, and it’s likely that more funding will come, either through additional appropriations from the legislature of existing CARES Act allocations, new federal funding through bills currently being considered or a combination of both,” ORS Media Relations Manager Ron Aiken said. “The good thing, this initial funding does put shovels in the ground immediately to begin the work that state and national leaders have agreed is the most significant infrastructure need our state, and country, faces.”
The projects are set to be completed by mid-December.
“I’ve learned that Telemedicine has unlimited potential to change our lives. It allows us to have doctor/patient interactions that are more convenient for the patient and more informative for the doctor. What is required to make all this happen? Broadband. There are places in South Carolina where you might as well be on the moon when it comes to getting cell phone service and high speed internet.”, Sen. Graham said.
The boardroom at Prisma Health’s Columbia office was brimming with state health advocates and politicians eager to find a solution to what has become a digital divide between urban and rural areas and along socioeconomic lines, making it difficult for some citizens to obtain quality healthcare. This divide has been an ongoing healthcare issue but has recently come to the forefront amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“A wake-up call has descended upon the nation after the Coronavirus in a couple of areas, one of which is Telemedicine. A lot of people can’t get out of their homes for different reasons. A lot of seniors, people with mental health issues. The bottom line is: we can actually, through technology, reestablish a doctor/patient relationship that is incredibly personal. They tell me that about 20-30% of patient interactions today could be done just as well through a telemedicine platform as an actual office visit. And as technology improves, so can the interaction,” said Sen. Graham.
This week, Senator Graham and Senators Mark Warner (D-Virginia) and Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) will introduce legislation to allocate $10 billion to help governors across America speed up the deployment of broadband in areas where there is the greatest need. Senator Graham anticipates that South Carolina would receive roughly $170 million out of the overall fund.
Nationwide, there are 21 million Americans who do not have access to the FCC standard for high speed Internet with 650,000 of those living in South Carolina. According to Senator Graham, this grant is an emergency measure aimed at increasing access this fall to Americans who either live in a coverage dead-zone or are unable to afford service.
“This, to me, is an absolute medical essential requirement. Can you imagine living your life today without electricity? If you don’t have broadband, in many ways, you’re just as much in the dark in the 21st century as you would be if you had no electricity in your house. So here’s my goal: to get some money in the next stimulus package – and I believe we’ll have a breakthrough – that will expedite the delivery of broadband access to rural and urban areas that are basically dark,” said Sen. Graham.
Mark Sweatman, MUSC Director of Government Relations and Secretary to the Board of Trustees; Kathy Schwarting, Palmetto Care Connections CEO; Senator Graham; Meera Narasimhan, MD, DFAPA, Associate Provost Health Sciences USC, Professor and Chair Department of NeuroSciences and Behavioral Science, USC School of Medicine; Ken Rogers, MD, Director of SC Department of Mental Health; and Mark Wess, MD Chief Medical Information Officer at Prisma Health were in attendance.
For more information, follow @sctelehealth on Facebook and Twitter.
Palmetto Care Connections (PCC) is the telehealth network for South Carolina that offers telehealth support services to rural and underserved health care providers.
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