Working on a totally unrelated project I found myself reading the recently released Roadmap to Healthier Minnesota, written by the Governor’s Health Care Reform Task Force. The Task Force is meeting on November 29 (this afternoon) to discuss public comment on the report. Just for context, I’ll include a very high level look at their proposed strategies:
- Pay for Value in Health Care
- Support PatientCentered, Coordinated Care
- Prepare and Support the Health Provider Workforce
- Improve Health for Specific At-Risk Populations
- Engage Communities
- Measure Performance and Ensure System Sustainability
- Design Benefits to Enhance Personal Responsibility
- Increase Access and Support Consumer Navigation
I’ve been steeped in the Broadband Task Force report lately so it was interesting to see a very different report with a similar goal – effective change in policy in Minnesota to improve the quality of life. I liked their road map, which is a hierarchy of goals, divided into elements then divided into tactics.
More importantly, it was interesting to see the role that broadband plays in the health report. Under strategy two (Support PatientCentered, Coordinated Care) broadband is listed a key element: Invest in high-need infrastructure for telehealth and workforce services that increase access and foster interprofessional competency.
Broadband is the underpinning required to support PatientCentered, Coordinated Care. It indicates that other departments are encouraging broadband adoption by providing more services online. (What better way to reach elderly residents, a demographic that tends to be non-adopters, than through healthcare?!) So what does this mean for the Broadband Task Force?
Tuesday at the Task Force meeting, I learned that the Broadband Subcabinet (includes the Minnesota Office of Enterprise Technology and the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development) is meeting next week and that members of the State health and transportation departments will be there. I hope that they will find areas of commonalities – such as this – to strengthen the messages going to the legislators also to help each department hone its message. Recognizing that the Department of Health is hoping to get more folks adopting broadband might help the Task Force focus on access. And while I haven’t read any recent report from the Department of Transportation, I know from conversations with David Asp that strides are being made, at least in Dakota County, to share infrastructure plans to encourage Dig Once practices. Maybe it creates an opportunity to collaborate on a fiber database. Or maybe there are other opportunities within the Department of Transportation to extend an existing infrastructure database to include fiber plans rather than create something new. It seems like together the folks in the know should be able to find such opportunities.
Hopefully the subcabinet meeting will be an opportunity for the State to being to hedge their bets by combining the collective cards of the various Departments and Task Forces to create the best hand possible to bring to the Legislature.