Dive Brief:
- The FCC is currently considering whether content providers should be able to pay for preferred, faster Internet access or whether to maintain "network neutrality," an approach which puts all Internet users on equal footing.
- While this issue hasn't been widely addressed, the way things fall out in the network neutrality debate could intimately affect healthcare organizations. It particularly stands to impact the growth of telemedical services such as remote wireless monitoring of vital signs in a patient's home, the adoption of personal health records and EMRs and access to health education for patients and providers.
- It's possible that giving some types of content priority—such as health information—would not have an undesirable outcome. However, it seems likely that if individual vendors such as Verizon or Comcast are allowed to prioritize their own applications, it will effectively preclude consumers from using medical services from other providers, the authors argue.
Dive Insight:
As the writers of a recent Health Affairs post point out, a wide range of healthcare stakeholders could be directly and painfully affected if specific vendors are allowed to create their own "fast lane" for content on the Internet. For example, they note, care providers such as hospitals, academic medical centers and ambulatory care centers; cloud-based EMR vendors; and content providers such as universities offering distance healthcare-related education could all see their business models impacted.
To avoid this outcome, the authors state, stakeholders should build awareness, "educating healthcare leaders and technology experts on network neutrality, and the trade-offs for a neutral or a non-neutral network for the organizations and end users." They also suggest that healthcare professionals bring the topic of net neutrality up to their CIO, professional associations in which they are involved and perhaps even elected officials. As other experts have noted, however, this is likely to be a bitter fight, with powerful interests aligned on both sides. At this point the outcome is decidedly uncertain.