Northwest TeleHealth, a Spokane-based telemedicine network, will receive a $2.7 million grant from Qwest Communications International Inc. to expand the network further throughout Eastern Washington.


Telemedicine enables doctors in one community to observe and help treat patients in another by using specialized videoconferencing and telemetry equipment and broad-bandwidth telecommunications lines.


Hospitals and medical clinics in 12 outlying areas already are linked to Deaconess Medical Center, Holy Family Hospital, Sacred Heart Medical Center, and Valley Hospital & Medical Center here via the network, says Chad Hutson, a spokesman at Inland Northwest Health Services (INHS), the parent organization of Northwest TeleHealth. INHS was formed by Spokanes four major hospitals to operate joint collaborations.


Some of the communities that likely will be connected to the expanded telemedicine network include Deer Park, Ritzville, Ione, Walla Walla, Richland, Wenatchee, Pasco, Ellensburg, and Clarkston, Hutson says. The 12 communities already connected to the network include Colville, Davenport, Colfax, Chewelah, Newport, Moses Lake, Chelan, Coulee City, Odessa, Omak, Othello, and Republic.


Northwest TeleHealth currently is talking with care providers in some of the Eastern Washington communities into which it wants to expand to determine each communitys needs and to decide where the most accessible place would be to set up the telemedicine equipment, Hutson says. Northwest TeleHealth hopes to add 26 communities to the network by the end of 2002, he says.


Qwest, the Denver-based Internet communications company that acquired U S West Inc. earlier this year, was ordered in August to pay $26 million for telecommunications services and network improvements as a final settlement in a 4-year-old court case over telephone rates charged by U S West, says the Washington state Utilities and Transportation Commission. Of that $26 million, $3.9 million was to be used to establish telemedicine connections between medical clinics or hospitals in outlying communities and regional medical centers.


Northwest TeleHealth was chosen to receive $2.7 million of the $3.9 million in telemedicine funds, while the University of Washington was selected to receive the remaining $1.2 million to continue development of a similar telemedicine network in Western Washington, Hutson says.


Northwest TeleHealth plans to use the grant to expand its network infrastructure, to buy videoconferencing and telemetry equipment needed for each site to use the system, and connect those sites to the network, he says.


Through the network, patients will be able to receive advanced care without having to travel to a metropolitan area where more specialists typically practice, Hutson says. Also, physicians and nurses will be able to participate in training or educational seminars without having to leave their respective hospitals or medical clinics.