Client News
The home and remote care telehealth market is predicted to expand to more than $40 billion by 2028, dwarfing previous market caps of $750 million. National experts to discuss the “tsunami of telehealth growth” for patients and healthcare consumers at UMTRC conference July 20-21.
SOUTH BEND, Indiana – Dramatic telehealth growth is transforming the healthcare industry, bringing with it major changes for patients, families, physicians and medical professionals in every sector.
At the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, many clinics and hospitals were conducting a handful of telehealth visits a day between patients and medical professionals. By mid-April of 2020, daily non-urgent telehealth visits had grown a staggering 4,000 percent, according to the Journal of American Informatics Association. 
“During the pandemic year, telehealth services went from an emerging alternative to a dominant solution for the delivery of certain types of healthcare, including urgent situations,” said Becky Sanders, Program Director for the Upper Midwest Telehealth Resource Center. “Telehealth as a market went from a few million dollars annually a decade ago to an astonishing $10 billion in 2020 and is expected to more than double in size over the next few years to at least $43 billion.”
TERRE HAUTE, Indiana – Recognizing outstanding service in rural healthcare, the Indiana Rural Health Association (IRHA) selected Yolanda Yoder, M.D., chief medical director for Southern Indiana Community Health Care (SICHC), for its 2021 “Doc Hollywood” award.
SICHC Chief Medical Director
Taking its name from a popular film where an inspiring urban surgeon discovers the rewards of practicing in a rural setting, the annual IRHA “Doc Hollywood” recipient is chosen by a group of independent medical professionals who review nominations from across Indiana. The award was presented before the keynote address from former U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams on June 16 at the annual IRHA conference at French Lick, Indiana.
According to Cara Veale, IRHA CEO, Dr. Yoder was chosen for a variety of reasons, including the fact that “Dr. Yoder’s exceptional commitment to high quality healthcare throughout her four rural county service area is well-documented by medical peers, state officials, local leadership and patients themselves. As one local leader noted, ‘our region relies on her for her wisdom, discipline, substance, truth, teamwork, responsibility and excellence. She is always willing to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. She’s a proven leader.’”
See video of Dr. Yoder receiving the 2021 award by clicking here.
Hamilton’s deep experience in developing and managing complex events helps thousands of Hoosiers receive COVID-19 in a timely and safe fashion.
INDIANAPOLIS –Hamilton Exhibits is privileged to be helping in the state’s mass vaccination efforts to protect Hoosiers by providing complex event planning and support. This includes the Indiana Department of Health’s large scale COVID-19 mass vaccination drive-in events in Notre Dame, Sellersburg and elsewhere.
Hamilton Exhibits, a long-time family-owned business on the east side of Indianapolis, stepped up to assemble and execute what Hamilton CEO Jason Weddle described as “very complex events with many moving parts.”
ELLETTSVILLE and MARTINSVILLE – A joint high-speed project that has attracted national industry attention took its first steps toward providing fiber service for up to 3,40o residents in Monroe and Owen Counties on April 12. High-speed customers for both companies came online as part of a unique fiber project directed by Smithville Communications, a top 100 national broadband company, and SCI REMC, Indiana’s largest rural electric cooperative.
“It is always good news when we can announce the availability of high-speed fiber in a rural area of Indiana, but this milestone is great news in that it represents the first fiber service jointly developed by a unique partnership between Smithville and SCI REMC,” said Cullen McCarty, Executive Vice President of Smithville Communications. “Since both organizations serve customers in essentially the same geographic area, this represents an excellent opportunity to work together to accelerate fiber availability to the customers we jointly serve.”
“Smithville and SCI REMC are setting a new bar of high standards for remarkable innovation in providing critical fiber service to Hoosiers in rural areas of Indiana,” said Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, who oversees Indiana’s Next Level Connections Broadband Grant Program and the state Office of Broadband Opportunities. “Governor Eric Holcomb and I applaud both companies for finding a way to jointly accelerate the construction of fiber services in regions where high-speed internet is often not readily available.”
According to James Tanneberger, president and CEO of SCI REMC, when the new fiber network is built and active, residential and business customers will be able to choose service from either Smithville or SCI REMC. As noted, both companies will independently market services to customers within the project area.
“This unique partnership benefits all parties,” said Tanneberger. “By working with Smithville, SCI REMC can ensure that businesses and residents in our joint service areas can have access to world-class high-speed internet in the most expeditious, fiscally responsible way possible, and at the same time meet our electric smart grid needs.”
National COIN innovation group tasked with “sharing ideas and developing innovative strategies and communication approaches” to reduce health and racial inequities in delivery of healthcare services, especially to women of childbearing age.
TERRE HAUTE, Indiana – Conceiving, carrying and safely delivering healthy babies serves as a critical objective for any region, but is of particular importance in rural areas where inequities in healthcare access may prove challenging.
Reducing racial and societal inequities in healthcare delivery, especially the “very different dynamics” of social determinants affecting healthy pregnancies, represents a key focus for Joanah Wischmeier, BSN, RN. Wischmeier, a Project Director at the Indiana Rural Health Association (IRHA), was recently named to the inaugural national Healthy Start COIN (Collaborating Innovation Network), according to Cara Veale, DHS, OTR, FACHE, Chief Executive Officer of IRHA. (A COIN is defined as a team of self-motivated people with a collective vision, enabled by the web to collaborate in achieving a common goal by sharing ideas, information and work.)
PAOLI, Indiana – Patients with high blood pressure (hypertension) served by Southern Indiana Community Health Care (SICHC) clinics will soon be able to receive a free digital blood pressure cuff monitor, according to Yolanda Yoder, MD, SICHC Medical Director. SICHC secured a $159,000 grant from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to initiate the four-county program.
The grant funds will be used to purchase and distribute the specialty blood pressure cuffs, which can securely transmit health care data through a cellular enabled device, and to purchase the healthcare software required to receive, process and secure the confidential data. The data will help SICHC medical professionals treat high blood pressure remotely.
Eligible SICHC patients receiving treatment for both “controlled” hypertension (blood pressure maintained at 120/80) and “uncontrolled” high blood pressure (blood pressure typically appearing at 140/90 or above) will receive the free digital units.
MONTGOMERY, Indiana – Can high-speed broadband fiber connectivity be achieved through most of Daviess County within a few years? The Daviess County Economic Development Corporation is now pursuing the creation of a countywide Infrastructure Development Zone to support a potential $20 million fiber construction project by RTC Communications, according to Bryant Niehoff, Executive Director of the Daviess County Economic Development Corporation (DCEDC).
“In the digital age, access to high-speed fiber connectivity is a ‘must-have’ when competing for investment and talent, and the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the need to focus on broadband accessibility at a county-wide scale,” explained Niehoff. “By designating all of Daviess County as an Infrastructure Development Zone, our community leaders and elected officials are taking a major step in addressing the broadband accessibility challenges that face us today.”
ELLETTSVILLE and BLOOMFIELD (Indiana) – Smithville, Indiana’s largest privately-held telecom, and the Utilities District of Western Indiana REMC (UDWI) announced a unique limited partnership that is expected to accelerate high-speed fiber construction in a cost-effective manner. The partnership is expected to mutually benefit customers and communities in their overlapping service areas, according to Darby A. McCarty, Chairman and CEO of Smithville, and Doug Childs, UDWI CEO.
The two companies will first leverage this new partnership to bring high-speed fiber-optic connectivity to more than 800 homes in the rural area east of Stanford in Monroe County. The two-year project will begin its initial phase in early 2021 and focus on building residential fiber connectivity to about 280 homes. Additional areas of the project are expected to start construction later in 2021. The companies set a schedule that forecasts the completion of the full project of more than 800 homes by the end of 2022.
“Smithville currently has fiber and legacy service customers in Greene and Monroe Counties and other areas served by UDWI, so combining strategic resources in a limited partnership will bring benefits to present and future customers and communities served by both,” said Ms. McCarty. “Many of these areas have high construction costs, so this partnership will help lower costs and accelerate fiber access without impacting either of our customer bases.”