TUCSON, AZ – A $15 million grant awarded to the University of Arizona's Telemedicine Program by the FCC will extend its network to the American Southwest, a step officials believe is the beginning of a nationwide broadband network for healthcare.

The grant will provide  $15.56 million over three years to healthcare providers in rural and low-income locations in the Southwest, enabling them to have access to urban health centers and specialty experts through a broadband communications network.

The grant proposal was co-authored by members of the Four Corners Telehealth Consortium, organized in 2004 by Ronald S. Weinstein, MD, founding director of the ATP and executive director of the UA College of Medicine Institute for Advanced Telemedicine and Telehealth.

The Four Corners Telehealth Consortium includes Weinstein, representing Arizona, and the directors of other state-based Telemedicine/telehealth programs headquartered at the Universities of Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

ATP will receive $875,000 of the funding to upgrade network infrastructure systems that provide services to 171 telemedicine sites in 71 communities.