Client News
UMTRC, a federally funded program of the Indiana Rural Health Association (IRHA), serves four states in helping to establish, grow and sustain critical telehealth operations.
TERRE HAUTE, Indiana – Telehealth continues to grow exponentially across the United States, and telehealth operations in the Midwest will now continue to benefit from the Upper Midwest Telehealth Resource Center (UMTRC). The organization, a pioneer and long-time champion of Midwest telehealth expansion, was awarded $975,000 as part of a major three-year federal grant ($325,000 a year) from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).
IRHA CEO
“The need for and expansion of telehealth literally exploded during the 2020 lockdown and COVID-19 crisis,” said Cara Veale, CEO of the Indiana Rural Health Association. “The UMTRC has played an important role in helping hospitals, clinics, physicians and medical professionals institute and bring high-impact telehealth operations up to speed.”
The UMTRC is one of 12 Regional and 2 National Telehealth Resource Centers, one for policy and one for technology, that are funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) and HRSA’s Office for the Advancement of Telehealth, which is part of the Office of Rural Health Policy.
“The pandemic year was a transformational time for telehealth services, as telehealth went from an emerging alternative to a dominant solution for the delivery of certain types of healthcare, including urgent situations,” said Becky Sanders, UMTRC Program Director, “Telehealth as a market accelerated from a few million dollars annually a decade ago to an incredible $10 billion in 2020.”
The industry, she said, is expected to more than triple in size over the next few years to approach $40 billion in service value.
Telehealth is recognized as critically important at the federal level. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra outlined the importance of telehealth when he announced the new three-year grants: “Telehealth is crucial to providing convenient and sustained care for patients.”
Added HRSA acting Administrator Diana Espinosa, “Telehealth expands access to care and is a vital tool for improving health equity by providing timely clinical assessment and treatment for our most vulnerable populations.” She went on to say that the new funding “will help drive the innovation necessary to build clinical networks, educational opportunities, and trusted resources to further advance telehealth.”
After turning on the network for its first residential customers in 2016, Smithville also built a 100-gigabit core network node for commercial growth in the Jasper area.
JASPER, Indiana – Smithville, a national top 100 broadband company, turned on its final fiberhood in the city of Jasper in August, bringing fiber construction to a close for its $15 million fiber overbuild project, according to Darby McCarty, Chairman and CEO. The citywide project brings symmetrical gigabit connectivity (up to 1,000 Mbps download and upload speed) to businesses and residents and the network – which includes a 100-gigabit core network node – “will benefit the people of Jasper for many years to come,” McCarty said.
“We promised in our formal announcement of the project in 2015 that we would deliver a transformational network with gigabit speed, and we have achieved that,” she added. Smithville divided the construction segments in Jasper into 27 separate “fiberhoods.” The first residential customers on the new Smithville network were turned on in 2016.
“Smithville has proven to be a great partner for the people and businesses of Jasper,” said Mayor Dean Vonderheide of Jasper. “Their state-of-the-art fiber network and commitment to the community has created many new opportunities for the city.” The Mayor added that he is aware of a number of new Jasper residents who specifically relocated to the city because of the availability of high-speed fiber connectivity.
Unlike many other fiber civic overbuild projects in Indiana, Smithville did not receive any taxpayer funds or TIF district funding for the Jasper project, which began construction in 2015.
An unusual news post – In 2021, MEK was privileged to nominate Yolanda Yoder, M.D., Chief Medical Officer for the four-county Southern Indiana Community Health Care organization (SICHC), for the Indiana Rural Health Association’s (IRHA) top award for individual excellence in rural healthcare. While we at MEK are privileged to represent SICHC, the nomination and completion of the extensive application was done pro bono (with the timely help of Katarina Koch at SICHC). The letters of support for Dr. Yoder’s nomination (IU Health, etc.) were generous in worthy praise for Dr. Yoder’s amazing work. The good news? Dr. Yoder won the award! To our astonishment, we were able to keep it a secret from her (no small task). When she was invited to come up and received the award, she was her typical humble, self-effacing self. Caught a little off-guard, she merely accepted the award, not making any remarks (here’s the remarkable video). True to form, she later wished she had thanked and recognized all those who, in her words, made the award possible. So, again true to form, she wrote it out. Here are her words of thanks:
Dear MEK team,
I must say that I was a tad overwhelmed by the event at the Indiana Rural Health award event and in reflecting back over the fun, the embarrassment at the attention and the grief that I didn’t bravely take the podium to say what was on my heart, I wanted you to know that I am deeply grateful that your team has taken us under your wing to help highlight what rural communities can do. If we can be an example for others, we are invigorated anew in the work that we do. You have gone above and beyond as our partner in this work.
To put all of this together, I’ve penned some thoughts that I needed to put together……
Upon receiving the Doc Hollywood award, if I had taken the podium, this is what I would have said.
“This is a humbling achievement, and I can’t stand on this stage and receive it without the awkward feeling that it is misplaced. The entire broad host of collaborators for our region is really the team that needs to be named. It is this team that has championed with formidable determination and creativity it’s love for rural communities and many of you are in this room today:
Smithville selected for Top 100 recognition in part for deploying networks intended to transform local economies or improve communities’ quality of life and for introducing innovative technologies with game-changing potential.
ELLETTSVILLE, Indiana – Recognized with other industry leaders found to be “exceptional in their achievements and ambition,” Smithville was honored in July as one of America’s top 100 national broadband companies, according to Sean Buckley, editor-in-chief of Broadband Communities magazine.
Requirements to be selected in the intense annual competition include deploying networks intended to transform local economies or improve communities’ quality of life; introducing innovative technologies with game-changing potential; and provide key conditions for fiber builds, including advocacy.
TERRE HAUTE, Indiana – Getting the urgent word out – expanding its statewide campaign to encourage rural Hoosiers to get vaccinated for COVID-19, the Indiana Rural Health Association (IRHA) produced and is promoting a series of short videos from trusted rural physicians and hospital leaders and administrators. This includes stories of physicians and healthcare professionals who had COVID-19 or experienced the devastation personally.
IRHA CEO
“Given the current rise in the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19, getting the facts about the available COVID-19 vaccines is more important than ever,” said Cara Veale, IRHA CEO.
“A whole range of healthcare professionals, including hospital CEOs, leading physicians and a surgeon, stepped up to help encourage people in rural areas to get vaccinated for COVID-19,” Veale explained. “All have personally seen firsthand the ravages of COVID and the suffering that COVID-19 patients can go through.”
All of the healthcare professionals participating in the videos have been vaccinated themselves.
The videos are being distributed and promoted through various means, including targeted social media across Indiana rural areas.
“We were asked directly by Dr. Kris Box, the Indiana State Health Commissioner, to try and help reach rural people, and we’re taking this very seriously,” Veale added. “Research shows that rural people want to get verified information from trusted sources, so we focused on finding professionals who are well known in their communities.”
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.”