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Estimating the Economic Impact of Telemedicine in a Rural Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Brian E. Whitacre
Brian E. Whitacre*
Affiliation:
The Department of Agricultural Economics at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma
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Abstract

One commonly discussed benefit of broadband access in rural America is the potential for telemedicine visits that allow rural residents to take advantage of urbanized medical services. While the primary benefit of telemedicine is often viewed as improved health care access, the availability of these services also offers significant economic contributions to the local community. Site visits to 24 rural hospitals of varying size over a four-state area in the Midwest provide information to develop a methodology for estimating telemedicine's economic impact. Using this technique, telemedicine services contribute between $20,000 and $1.3M annually to these local economies, with an average of $522,000.

Keywords

telemedicineeconomic impactteleradiologytelepsychiatry
Type
Rural Development and Broadband Use
Information
Agricultural and Resource Economics Review , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , August 2011 , pp. 172 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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