Frequently Asked Questions
Illinois Rural HealthNet (IRHN)
Autumn, 2008
- What is the IRHN?
- Where is the money coming from?
- What happens when the initial funding from the FCC runs out?
- Who will actually be providing the telecommunications services that
the IRHN provides to rural hospitals and clinics?
- Who will I call to ask for changes to my service, or if there’s
a disruption in service?
- How will the IRHN hospitals and clinics know when they should prepare
for connection to the network?
- If my hospital is getting some funds from USAC now via the rural
health care program, how will that work when it’s time to become part
of the IRHN?
- When is the IRHN going to be completed? And when will the first hospitals
come on board?
- What do we need to have in place at our health care facility in
order to connect to the IRHN?
- Who’s in charge of the IRHN?
- What kind of health care entities are eligible to be connected
to the IRHN? Is it restricted to Not-for-Profit hospitals?
- Is there someone I can talk to if I have more questions about the
IRHN?
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)
The Illinois Rural HealthNet (IRHN) is a not-for-profit corporation of health care providers and universities that have come together to deploy and maintain a high-speed network to connect rural hospitals and health care clinics in Illinois. Over 80 rural health care entities will be linked to each other and to urban medical centers, allowing them to transmit electro-cardiograms, CT scanner files, digital mammography files, and other diagnostic information that will facilitate consultation with specialists, faster medical treatment, and a reduced need to transport elderly citizens to distant hospitals.
2. Where is the money coming from?
Funding for the initial network of over 80 locations is being provided primarily by the Federal Communications Commission, through their Rural Health Care Pilot Program. Via the Pilot, 85% of the initial cost, $21 million, will be used to link rural health care facilities with fiber optic cable and point-to-point wireless. The IRHN has to find other funding sources for the additional 15%, which is about $3 million. Some of this will come from government and charitable sources, and some will be obtained by charging hospitals a monthly cost for telecommunications services. This charge would not begin until hospitals agree that they want to be part of the IRHN, and would not begin until the hospitals are actually connected to the IRHN.
The FCC is not paying the entire cost of the program. Rural hospitals are not being given free data circuits. The hospitals working with the IRHN in the network design phase of the process will be given the following choice at the end of this process:
- If they choose to not become part of the IRHN, they can continue with their current services, or develop new services as they choose, on their own. If they are participating in the annual USAC rural health care telecommunications funding program (urban/rural ratio), they can simply continue to do so.
- Or, after being shown the costs involved in moving to the IRHN, and being shown the improvement in services they will receive, the hospitals can choose to take the next step, and participate in the IRHN as it is implemented.
Most of the hospitals currently working with the IRHN utilize T-1 circuits for data connectivity. T-1 circuits allow for 1.5 Mbps. The IRHN, when it is implemented, will provide a minimum of 100 Mbps for hospitals connected via point-to-point wireless, and a minimum of 1 Gigabit/second for hospitals connected via fiber.
The FCC’s Pilot Program is paying for the capital cost of building the network. The hospitals that choose to become part of the IRHN will be asked to pay a cost to be linked to the network and a monthly cost for maintenance and equipment refresh. This cost will be spelled out in detail and will be presented to each hospital before any hospital is asked to make the decision as to whether they want to be part of the IRHN.
The bottom line is this: The IRHN will give rural hospitals an opportunity to have high speed communications at a cost that is much lower than what is now available to them. Each hospital will make its own choice.
3. What happens when the initial funding from the FCC runs out?
The IRHN has designed the network implementation in a manner such that ongoing costs will be manageable. Here’s a summary of the plan:
- Most of the funding from the FCC will be used for long term assets, whether in equipment, facilities, or long-term service contracts which are front-loaded.
- As a result of the investment in long term assets, the ongoing annual costs, after the FCC funding has been used, will be financially manageable.
- Users of the IRHN will pay a reasonable cost for their connection, which will be fully laid out before hospitals are asked to make the decision to proceed. Each of the health care facilities is currently paying for broadband services. Once the facilities are brought onto the IRHN, the hospitals will make payments to the IRHN instead of to their current provider.
- Please note, however, that the current providers are encouraged to respond to the Requests for Proposals for the IRHN that will be posted on the federal USAC website, and could well become part of the IRHN network. In that case, payment to the current provider would be routed through the IRHN and the Pilot Program of USAC. At the end of the Pilot Program, rural hospitals would again be able to participate in the “regular” annual USAC program for rural health care connectivity.
- Most of the health care facilities that will become part of the IRHN are currently receiving some level of rural healthcare broadband funding support from USAC. During the period of the FCC Pilot Program, the Pilot funding will replace the “regular” USAC annual funding for these facilities. As stated above, after the FCC funding is used, the rural health care facilities can again apply for the regular annual USAC health care broadband funding.
- In the first phases of the process, the IRHN will be designing the network
to be deployed. After this is completed, hospitals will be provided complete
information as to:
- How the IRHN would actually work in connecting to their specific facility.
- What the hospital’s actual, out-of-pocket expenses would be, both initially and going forward.
- At that time, the hospitals and health clinics will be able to make an informed decision as to whether they choose to utilize the services that will be offered by the IRHN. Because of the Pilot Program funding, the IRHN will be able to offer significantly faster and larger throughput at a very reasonable cost, than what is currently available to most rural locations. The hospitals will then make their choice.
The items listed above are primary factors in the business plan for the IRHN’s financial sustainability on an ongoing basis. The plan includes sufficient funding to pay for ongoing maintenance and network repair, as well as operations.
The IRHN, like all Pilot Program participants, will be posting each and every request for services for at least 28 days on the federal USAC website, and the best responses will be chosen to build the network. All telecommunications providers will be encouraged to respond to the RFPs.
The IRHN will work with USAC to pick the best RFP responses, and to coordinate the deployment of the improved, high-speed network services. So, in answer to the question, the services will be provided by a range of service providers. However, the IRHN will also be choosing a network management entity, which will be charged with managing and operating the network, and providing maintenance, on a 24/7 basis.
5. Who will I call to ask for changes to my service, or if there’s a disruption in service?
The IRHN will be posting an RFP for network management and operations, and network maintenance, on the USAC website. The IRHN will sign a contract with the vendor that is seen as best qualified to provide reliable, secure, and cost-effective services to keep the IRHN network up and running. The IRHN will write a Service Level Agreement that will be part of the contract, and it will include:
- Emergency contact persons and procedures
- Routine maintenance contact persons and procedures
- Escalation contact procedures
- 24/7 coverage
The IRHN will also have contact persons and procedures for questions/issues concerning expansions of service, location changes, etc.
As soon as we finalize our proposed schedule with the FCC and USAC, we will communicate with all IRHN locations about the timing, the costs, and the technical ramifications. This will occur at least a year prior to connection, because locations that are utilizing USAC annual funding will need to make adjustments in their USAC applications.
The IRHN will develop a projected four-year schedule that shows which health care facilities will be connected in each year. IRHN locations that are currently participating in the annual USAC rural health care funding program for broadband connectivity should continue to do so.
The IRHN will coordinate the timing with each facility, working with each facility and working directly with USAC, and we will agree on the target date to move each facility onto the new network. The facility will continue to use their current data connection for at least one month after connection to the IRHN, to make sure that the IRHN connection is working properly. After this has been positively determined, the health facility will migrate their data traffic to the IRHN network connection, and at that point, the IRHN network funding process will activate and the health facility’s “regular” annual USAC funding stream will be temporarily suspended.
In short, the IRHN location will start paying the IRHN for their (much faster) data connection, and stop paying for the previous (slower) connection.
When the Pilot Program has been completed, in approximately four years time, the rural hospitals can then apply for the “regular” annual USAC health care funding process for telecommunications.
8. When is the IRHN going to be completed? And when will the first hospitals come on board?
We anticipate that most of the network will be in place by 2011. The first connections to hospitals should go live in a little over a year from this autumn.
9. What do we need to have in place at our health care facility in order to connect to the IRHN?
The IRHN will be providing either 1 Gbps or 100 Mbps connectivity to each facility, and will provide a link to your router to connect your facility to the network. In order to make full use of the network, facilities should have a 10/100/1000 base-T capable device, to distribute the data to your facility’s end users. Your router must be capable of supporting the IPV6 protocol that is used throughout the IRHN backbone. You will not be required to use IPV6 within your organization.
As is typical in best network practices, a firewall is recommended to provide security to your internal network.
If you have existing devices, you will want to make sure that they have the data throughput capabilities to handle the data rate provided by the IRHN.
10. Who’s in charge of the IRHN?
The IRHN is managed by a not-for-profit corporation, designated as such by the State of Illinois, and the application for federal tax-exempt 501(c)3 status has been submitted.
The IRHN contains the initial membership as listed on the About the Consortium webpage found under the Consortium Participants heading, and the day-to-day activities of the IRHN are overseen by the IRHN Executive Committee.
The following are eligible to be connected to the IRHN, per the FCC rules for the Health Care Pilot Program:
- Public and not-for-profit health care providers, as defined by the FCC’s Rural Health Care program;
- Post-secondary educational institutions offering health care instruction, teaching hospitals, or medical schools;
- Local health departments or agencies;
- Dedicated emergency departments of rural for-profit hospitals;
- Community mental health centers;
- Not-for-profit hospitals;
- Rural health clinics;
- Consortia of health care providers consisting of one or more of the above entities;
- Part-time eligible entities located in otherwise ineligible facilities.
The following entities are not eligible for Pilot Program funding to be connected to the IRHN:
- Private physician offices or clinics;
- Nursing homes or other long-term care facilities;
- Emergency medical services facilities (unless it is part of an eligible health care provider);
- Residential substance abuse treatment facilities;
- Hospices;
- For-profit hospitals (unless they have a dedicated emergency department, in which case the emergency department is eligible);
- Home health agencies;
- Blood banks;
- Social service agencies.
Important note:
Health care entities that are not eligible for Pilot Program funding can be connected to the IRHN network, per the FCC rules, but only if such entities pay their “fair share” of costs to be connected to the network.
What does that mean? The FCC Pilot Program pays 85% of the cost of connecting the eligible health care entities to the IRHN. If a health care entity is considered ineligible, they can still choose to be connected to the network, but they would have to pay the full cost of the network connection. The IRHN can provide cost proposals for health care entities that are considered ineligible for Pilot Program funding.
12. Is there someone I can talk to if I have more questions about the IRHN?
If you have questions, please call or email:
Alan Kraus
Director, IRHN
815-753-8945
akraus@niu.edu
or
Doug Power
815-753-8947
dpower@niu.edu