Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe is a well-rounded man. He’s a husband, father and a grandfather to seven. He’s served in the US Army Reserve, had a 20-year career in the Arkansas state Senate and served as Arkansas’ Attorney General. Now add Telehealth Ninja to his credentials.
Beebe recently gave the opening address to the Missouri/Illinois Broadband Summit. The Missouri summit, similar to the recent South Central Telehealth Forum, brought government and heath care professionals together to learn, connect and increase awareness for telehealth and broadband.
Beebe lauded Arkansas’ efforts in creating sustainable broadband to be utilized by health care, education and business. He was complimentary of the Arkansas eLink project which provided a state-wide superhighway for telehealth. It’s 474 sites link people and providers all over Arkansas. The sites include hospitals, clinics, Arkansas’ 22 2-year colleges and home health providers.
Here’s Gov. Beebe’s address:
Dr. Curtis Lowery, MD, Chair of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Ob-Gyn department and the ANGELS program, gave the keynote address at the conference. Lowery mentioned the challenges of health care with providers having to do a lot more with less. According to Lowery, one of the biggest issues is that health care lost the focus on the patient.
LearnTelehealth’s Tamara Perry, MA, helped facilitate an action planning workshop along with representatives from the Heartland TRC and the Upper Midwest TRC.
Lowery was joined by other big names in telehealth like: Missouri Gov. Jay Dixon, Dr. Thomas Hale (Mercy Health System), Ray Hanley (Arkansas Medicaid), Jon Linkous (ATA), Kathy Chorba (California TRC), Mario Gutierrez (Center for Connected Health Policy) and many others. The conference was organized by Deborah Seale, PhD. Seale is faculty member of St. Louis University’s Health Informatics and Information Management department.
Dr. Curtis Lowery, MD
UAMS OB-GYN
Tamara Perry, MA
South Central Telehealth Resource Center
