[1st-mile-nm] UNM HSC: Grant Award Announcement

[Richard Lowenberg]

The UNM HSC Center for Telehealth and Cybermedicine Research Awarded
$15,561,181.

(See the web site for the complete announcement, and a diagramatic map
indicating networked service and partner clouds.)  rl

http://hsc.unm.edu/som/telehealth

The Center for Telehealth and Cybermedicine Research at the University of
New Mexicos Health Sciences Center has been awarded $15,561,181 for The
Southwest Telehealth Access Grid (SW TAG) Project. Funding comes through
the Federal Communications Commission. Dale Alverson, MD, Medical Director
of CfTH is the Principal Investigator, Arthur B. Maccabe, UNM, CIO is the
Co-Principal Investigator. The funding, over three years, will provide
support for the costs of hardware and software, design, development,
implementation, operations, maintenance, and evaluation of a telemedicine
access grid. An additional $4,022,508 of matching funds will be provided
by the SW TAG members, bringing the total funding for the project to
$19,583,689.

Lead by the University of New Mexico, the SW TAG is a partnership between
New Mexico, the Arizona Telemedicine Network and the Southwest Indian
Health Service Telehealth Consortium and associated tribes. The funds will
support the build out of a telehealth access grid, providing the platform
for the sharing, distribution and coordination of telemedicine clinical
services, educational and training programs for 500 health related
facilities across the rural southwest. The SW TAG network will also
support UNM Clinical and Translational Science Center community-based
research. In addition to the grids support of day-to-day telemedicine
transactions among participating agencies, it will also provide a system
that can be quickly transitioned to support telehealth and other high
priority traffic in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.

The telecommunications stakeholders in this proposal will play a critical
role in bridging serious healthcare gaps through the development of
adequate and affordable broadband infrastructure to communities in their
territory. The project leverages, to a large extent, existing statewide
and regional network infrastructure and investments already in place. The
grid will provide for the integration of the high-speed Internet backbones
offered by Internet 2 and National Lambda Rail.

Unique features of SW TAG are the network design studies and modeling
components. These will allow iterative improvement through ongoing
simulation, testing, evaluation, development and utilization throughout
the project. Security, improved reliability, quality of service, and
appropriate redundancy that can support disaster recovery are incorporated
as part of the modeling and design.

The consortium of 12 stakeholders includes the Center for Disaster
Medicine, Carrie Tingley Hospital, Center for High Performance Computing,
Electrical & Computer Engineering, NM Institute of Mining & Technology, NM
State University, NM Department of Health, Los Alamos National Laboratory,
Southwest Indian Health Service including Albuquerque Area IHS, Navajo
IHS, Phoenix Area IHS, Tucson Area IHS, Arizona Telemedicine Program, Holy
Cross Hospital, Presbyterian Medical Services and Sangre de Cristo
Community Health Partnership.


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Richard Lowenberg
P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504
505-989-9110,  505-603-5200 cell

1st-Mile Institute
New Mexico Broadband Initiative
www.1st-mile.com
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