Maine is a deceptively complex state, with remote sections defined by grid coordinates rather than town names, island communities accessible only by boat and winter storms that make driving nearly impossible. What better place, then, to test a new telehealth service?

Time Warner Cable's Healthcare Solutions project aims to connect providers with patients through a dedicated Internet channel

PORTLAND, ME -- That’s the thinking of Time Warner Cable, which has launched a teleconferencing pilot through its Health Solutions business that’s designed to enable healthcare providers to communicate and transact with each other and patients over a secure community intranet that meets federal privacy and security standards.

"There is increasing acknowledgement that telehealth will play a significant role in medicine as healthcare costs and access to care continue to be growing concerns," said Robert Moel, Time Warner Cable’s group vice president of Healthcare Solutions. "Our Healthcare Solutions delivered over Time Warner Cable’s private, secure connection makes it easier, faster, safer and cheaper for doctors to consult with each other, communicate with and monitor their patients and deliver a better overall patient experience."

“Maine is such a good testing ground,” added Paul S. Schonewolf, the New England area vice president for Time Warner Cable. “We have such a broad and wide geography here that it just seemed natural to start here.”

To test the service, Time Warner Cable Business Class is partnering with healthcare providers, including InterMed – a multi-specialty healthcare organization with offices in Portland, South Portland and Yarmouth – and Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington.

"We’re pleased to partner with Time Warner Cable on this new product," said Devore Culver, executive director and CEO of HealthInfoNet, Maine’s health information exchange. "HealthInfoNet must ensure all healthcare providers connect to the health information exchange over a private and secure broadband connection. The Managed IP VPN product provides healthcare organizations access to a secure network without the hassle and cost of managing it themselves."

Scott Patch, MD, a family physician with InterMed in Yarmouth who is participating in the trial, said the tools allow doctors to more effectively manage patients with chronic diseases while making it more convenient and cheaper for patients – particularly the elderly – in seeking medical care.

"One of my patients is over 90 years-old and she can’t leave the house," said Patch. With the Health Solutions technology, he can "conduct a private appointment with her over the computer and discuss her care with her family without forcing her to get into a car and drive an hour for an office visit. From a patient’s perspective it’s an added convenience that could potentially decrease their healthcare costs."

Delivered over Time Warner Cable’s managed network and data center infrastructure, the Managed IP VPN service is offered with dedicated customer premise equipment, private addressing space and routing that keeps traffic segmented from the public Internet. Managed IP VPN enables customers to access managed healthcare applications hosted in Time Warner Cable Business Class’s healthcare cloud including Cisco WebEx Web conferencing for real time collaboration and video conversations, while providing a secure connection to the state’s HIE, where physicians can access their patients’ history.

Officials say future applications will include home health monitoring, which will provide end-to-end solutions for collecting, storing and presenting biometric data collected through personal health monitoring devices in a patient’s home.

“It’s really limitless,” said Schonewolf.

"With healthcare being at the top of our nation’s agenda, this is an important and strategic deployment for Cisco in the United States," said Murali Sitaram, vice president and general manager of Cisco's enterprise collaboration platform. "Time Warner Cable now has the ability to offer a rich collaboration service to healthcare delivery organizations in the state of Maine resulting in improved healthcare for their residents.

Cisco WebEx takes advantage of real-time collaboration giving healthcare providers the ability to communicate with patients while reducing costs and streamlining administrative processes."

Managing Editor Mike Miliard contributed to this story.