Sounds of the Summit: Today's perceptions in telehealth and Hawaii's vision for full connectivity

On this episode of Connected Nation, we continue our coverage from the Broadband Communities Summit West conference.

We discuss new trends in telehealth with a leading researcher on the topic and talk to a representative from Hawaiian Telecom about the state's goal to have a 100% connectivity by 2026.

Recommended Links:
Chris McGovern Linkedin
Jonathan Delahoyde Linkedin
Hawaiian Telecom

Past Broadband Communities Summit West episodes:
Sounds of the Summit: Episode #1
Sounds from the Summit: Why 100% connectivity is a moving target in the Sunflower State
Sounds of the Summit: Upcoming trends in digital inclusion and how one ISP is revolutionizing local connectivity

Chapters

• 2:06 Chris McGovern's panel on telehealth
• 3:40 Changing perceptions in telehealth
• 4:35 Latest telehealth research done by Chris and his team
• 7:40 One area of telehealth that brings excitment
• 9:28 Jonathan Delahoyde's role at Hawaiian Telecom
• 10:53 Infrastructure challenges in Hawaii
• 12:45 What it's like to work and live on the islands
• 15:10 One thing people get wrong about Hawaii

Transcript

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (00:07):
This is Connected Nation, an award-winning podcast focused on all things broadband from closing the digital divide to improving your internet speeds. We talk technology topics that impact all of us, our families, and our neighborhoods. On this episode of Connected Nation, we continue our coverage from the broadband community, summit West taking place in San Diego, California. On this episode, we talk to a leader in research about telehealth and find out what trends are impacting all of us. Plus we talk to a leader from Hawaii Telecom about the state's incredible goal to have a hundred percent connectivity by 2026. I'm Jessica Desen, and this is Connected Nation. I am still at the broadband community, summit West, taking place in San Diego, California, and I have run into another one of my peers, Chris McGovern, who is the director of research development at Connected Nation. Hi Chris. Hey

Chris McGovern, Connected Nation (01:04):
There. Thanks for having me.

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (01:05):
You're looking fly with this nice purple vest. The kids would say you're stylish or kids say that now?

Chris McGovern, Connected Nation  (01:12):
I don't know. Do do I have drip?

Jessica Denson (01:14):
Yeah, you have drip. That's what it is.

Chris McGovern (01:16):
You

Jessica Denson (01:16):
Got the drip? Yeah,

Chris McGovern (01:18):
That sounds like a disease.

Jessica Denson (01:22):
Yeah, it's not though. Okay, so now you tripped me up. That's all right. It takes a village to do that, right? It takes a lot of people. Anyway, so you just came out of Heather Gates panel. How was that?

Chris McGovern (01:36):
It was very interesting. They were talking about some of the partnerships that are able to help rural communities, and there was a lot of great information about both from the provider side as well as from the CN side, talking about the different issues that arise when folks try and set up those partnerships.

Jessica Denson (02:03):
And you're on a panel tomorrow, right? What is your panel topic?

Chris McGovern (02:06):
I am, tomorrow I will be moderating a panel talking about telehealth services and particularly how technology is helping older Americans, those living in assisted living facilities and those types of services. And telehealth can be such a boon, particularly for older Americans. And so it's really interesting topic and yeah, it really hits that connection between medicine and technology

Jessica Denson (02:41):
And really connected nation. Your department specifically was one of the first groups in the nation, if not the leading group, right before the pandemic to do some cutting edge telehealth research. Isn't that right?

Chris McGovern (02:54):
We have done a lot of research on telehealth, attitudes towards telehealth, the types of challenges that healthcare providers face when they try and expand their telehealth services. And you're right, we started talking about this before the pandemic and since then it has really obviously blown up.

Chris McGovern (03:17):
In the last year or so after we've gotten out of the whole emergency situation with Covid, telehealth usage has gone down a little bit, but it's still a lot higher than it was before the pandemic.

Jessica Denson (03:31):
So are you finding in your research now that that perceptions are changing or are people still have some of the same concerns?

Chris McGovern (03:40):
A lot of people are talking about concerns about data security and whether or not their information is going to be safe, whether it's going to be handled properly, when it's transferred. There are issues that are rising up now that are really common across all healthcare services. How am I going to pay for it? Is my insurance going to cover those sorts of things? And so the data security issue continues to be something right up at the top, but those cost concerns are inching up as well.

Jessica Denson (04:21):
And what are some of the latest areas of telehealth research that you've done? I know you've done some stuff in Michigan, some stuff in Colorado that isolated, or are there other places that you're looking?

Chris McGovern (04:35):
Well, our most recent research, like I said, it is been in rural areas

(04:40)
In Michigan's upper peninsula. It was really interesting because we had one study where we partnered with the Sioux Tribe of Chippewa Indians, and so we worked with them. They are just in the process of building out their telehealth program and their rural health clinics. And so we got to see that from a community standpoint. And then we also worked with the central Upper Peninsula area. And so that's a six county region, and so we got to look at it also from a geographic region. And so those were very interesting. Like you mentioned, we did also work with Colorado with the office of eHealth Innovation, and they've been very interested in improving telehealth usage and making it accessible to more people and particularly in rural areas. And so yeah, we

Jessica Denson (05:37):
Ready. What are some of the important reasons to have access to telehealth, especially in rural areas? Is it just the lack of hospitals or is there more to it?

Chris McGovern (05:46):
Well, lack of hospitals, it is one issue, but particularly in rural areas, you have the ability to access really medical experts. And a lot of times those experts aren't available in your smaller communities. Typically, you have to travel to a big city that's a few hours of driving. That's all of the issues with getting time off from work, getting a babysitter, all that stuff. And so through telehealth services, people are able to avoid a lot of that extra time. They're able to save money in terms of the travel costs and whatnot. And it's really just a lot more convenient. I just went through this with my dad. He had open heart surgery last winter and well winter, early spring, and he did that through the va, and it was at the VA hospital that was, it's a two hour drive. And so going back for checkup visits and those sorts of things, the ability to do that from home versus spending four hours in a car ride just for a checkup and make sure that everything's okay, it makes a huge difference,

Jessica Denson (07:18):
Especially for recovery, because he needs to rest and not be moving back and forth.

Chris McGovern (07:22):
Exactly, exactly.

Jessica Denson (07:26):
Are there any areas of telehealth that you're excited about that are emerging in the coming years or that you think need to be looked at?

Chris McGovern (07:34):
Well, one area of telehealth is, I mean, typically when folks talk about telehealth.

Chris McGovern (07:40):
Think about the online video conferencing with a doctor. And that, of course is very important. But there are so many different angles to telehealth with robotic surgery from administrative tasks that can be covered through telehealth and artificial intelligence is becoming such a huge issue.

Jessica Denson (08:05):
It's everything.

Chris McGovern (08:06):
Yeah, it's affecting every aspect of our lives. And so combining both the clinical and the administrative side of healthcare with ai, that's a big can of worms right there.

Jessica Denson (08:22):
Alright, well, Chris McGovern, who is the head of research development, your official titles, director of Research Development for Connected Nation. Thank you so much for joining us.

Chris McGovern (08:32):
Alright, thank you very much.

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (08:34):
We are at day two at the Broadband Community Summit West, taking place in San Diego, California on October 30th and 31st. And I'm standing with Jonathan De Hoy, who is the senior manager of strategy and fiber

Jonathan Delahoyde, Hawaiian Telcom (08:48):
Deployment

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (08:49):
Deployment. I knew I was missing something with Hawaiian Telecom, correct? Yeah. And he sat on a panel with me yesterday, or actually he was on the panel and I asked him questions. How are you doing, Jonathan?

Jonathan Delahoyde, Hawaiian Telcom (09:00):
I'm good. I'm good.

Jessica Denson (09:01):
Good.

Jonathan Delahoyde (09:01):
Yeah. Thanks

Jessica Denson (09:02):
For taking the time. Sure. It's October 31st. Where's your costume? No costume today?

Jonathan Delahoyde (09:06):
Yeah. Not yet. Me either. Yeah, not yet. But yeah, hopefully we'll participate later today.

Jessica Denson (09:12):
Yeah, I think me and my staff member, we're going to try to go out and we're going to dress up and have a little fun tonight.

Jessica Denson (09:22):
But anyway, let's get down to business. Talk about what your role is at Hawaii and telecom.

Jonathan Delahoyde (09:28):
We have a goal of completing the fiber build in Hawaii in 2026. So my role is to help provide the planning and engineering for that task. So we have up to 30 projects every month that are going on, and it's a lot of rinse and repeat and all sorts of different challenges with each individual project and prioritization and competing deadlines, and

Jessica Denson (09:56):
It's a lot. And 2026 is a pretty aggressive

Jonathan Delahoyde (10:00):
Deadline,

Jessica Denson (10:00):
Especially with when you consider what a lot of other states are dealing with, are you just having a lot of success or you've had a lot of experience there and that's why you're seeing a lot of progress?

Jonathan Delahoyde (10:10):
We started a while back over 10 years ago, and we've learned a lot of meaningful lessons the hard way, and now we've got our system ironed out. We have a great partner in Cincinnati Bell or now Alta Fiber, and they've provided us with some guidance as well, and us them, and we're a great team and we're looking to build two 70,000 homes next year.

Jessica Denson (10:38):
Oh, wow. That's a great target. Talk about what it's like working in Hawaii, because when we spoke on the panel, we had talked about, I said, it's an island. What do you have to deal with besides subsea cables? And you're like, no, we have a lot.

Jonathan Delahoyde (10:53):
Yeah, we have rainforests, active volcanoes, deserts, really hard rock. That's tough to dig in. And we don't really use a lot of directional boring like many of the other states do. Yeah, it's just the analogy I use is actually from my boss, but take your largest county that you can think of and put a dormant volcano right in the middle of it. So there's a lot of different challenges with that and having different climates on either side of the island, and it's not a lot of square miles, but we do have challenging other challenges. Every build has its own challenges. So

Jessica Denson (11:36):
Obviously Hawaiian islands is extreme of islands. So when you say you're going to connect by 2026, do you mean all of those, even the smallest, like

Jonathan Delahoyde (11:45):
Kauai? Yeah. Yeah. Actually we're going to finish Kauai this year for the last mile. But yeah, all the islands are connected now, but we do have a Middle mile project to provide additional connection points for the islands. So to provide redundancy and additional capacity.

Jessica Denson (12:03):
Is this fun for you? Do you have the kind of brain that's like, oh, this is a problem, we need to solve this as being in engineered background kind of thing? Wow.

Jonathan Delahoyde (12:13):
Yeah, we have fun. It's like if we weren't having fun, then we wouldn't be able to handle all the stress. And one of the analogies that I mentioned to my team is that no one's on an operating table. This is just fiber optics. We should try and have fun. There's a lot of deadlines to deal with,

Jonathan Delahoyde (12:32):
We do our best to meet our monthly quotas and this and that. But yeah, we're having a lot of fun.

Jessica Denson (12:39):
What's it like to work and live on the islands? Good and bad?

Jonathan Delahoyde (12:45):
Yeah, I mean, it's the best weather in the world, and we have a high cost of living due to that. So for me, it's just living one long vacation, but we have a lot of work to do. So just staying busy and just trying to appreciate the, that we do live in Hawaii

Jessica Denson (13:10):
Because it is out in the Pacific Ocean. Is there a issue with getting equipment or anything like that way out there?

Jonathan Delahoyde (13:19):
Yeah, I mean, there's delays it takes. It's like there's something coming over on the next shipment or whatever. But yeah, our procurement team does a fantastic job of making sure that we have the materials that we need. And then there's barges every week that go between the islands and it's a lot to manage, but they do a fantastic job.

Jessica Denson (13:44):
You partner with others or is Hawaii Telecom, I mean, do you work with the state and coordinate? How does that

Jonathan Delahoyde (13:51):
Work? Yeah, finding the synergies is always one of our goals. And our leaders coordinate with the various state agencies in Hawaii, department of Hawaiian, homelands, Hawaii, department of Transportation, things like that. So yeah, we're always looking for synergies and how to coordinate better.

Jessica Denson (14:13):
So tell me a little more about you, Jonathan. Did you grow up in Hawaii or did you land land

Jonathan Delahoyde (14:17):
There? No, I'm from the Cleveland area.

Jessica Denson (14:19):
The Cleveland area. Oh, I live in Louisville, Kentucky, so not far. Yeah, one of my friends calls it the Kleem. Is that true? Is that really what people say?

Jonathan Delahoyde (14:27):
Could be, yeah, could be. Yeah. I'm sure there's all sorts of nicknames, but yeah, Cleveland's a great place. I've left there in, well, pretty much in around 1998.

Jessica Denson (14:42):
Oh, so you've been to Hawaii for a long time?

Jonathan Delahoyde (14:43):
Well, I moved around a little bit.

Jessica Denson (14:45):
So what landed did you in Hawaii? Was it work with Hawaiian Telecom?

Jonathan Delahoyde (14:51):
No, actually. Well, I had my sight set on Hawaiian Tell, but I had originally went and worked for a friend of mine who had a photography company on Waikiki Beach while I was, that's kind

Jessica Denson (15:02):
Of nice

Jonathan Delahoyde (15:04):
Getting my feet wet

Jessica Denson (15:05):
Literally and figuratively. Yeah. Yeah. So what are some things that people get wrong about

Jonathan Delahoyde (15:10):
Hawaii? They think when everybody sees maybe Waikiki Beach and they come to visit and they don't get a chance to check out some of the neighbor islands and the beauty of the neighbor islands. I lived on the big island for about six years and it's just a beautiful place and beautiful community and just how wonderful everyone is and friendly. And I think visitors get to miss some of that

Jessica Denson (15:41):
Because they don't go to the other places. Right. Yeah. Gotcha. What's your favorite island? Can you say? Maybe you shouldn't say

Jonathan Delahoyde (15:48):
Probably Big Island.

Jessica Denson (15:48):
Big Island? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you Jonathan De Ho, who is with Hawaiian Telecom. I appreciate your time.

Jonathan Delahoyde (15:56):
Yeah, all good. Thank you. Alright,

Jessica Denson (15:58):
On the next episode of Connect Nation, we'll continue our coverage from the broadband community Summit West taking place in San Diego, California. I'm Jessica Denson. Thanks for listening to Connected Nation. If you like our show and want to know more about us, head to connected nation.org or look for the latest episodes on the iTunes iHeartRadio, Google Podcast, Pandora, or Spotify.