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   Cost to Deliver Care

In most cases, patients and providers must travel in order to receive needed medical services, but that travel is much more treacherous, complicated, and expensive than in most states. As mentioned earlier, Alaska’s road system covers only a small part of the state and leaves many communities completely isolated from traditional methods of transportation. While travel to the ‘lower-48’ for sub-specialty and rehabilitative services may not present difficulties logistically, the associated travel costs are tremendous. In some cases, the travel budgets for rural clinics are larger than staffing budgets. The graphic above indicates typical round trip airfares from some remote locations to Anchorage – the location of most specialty healthcare. The AFHCAN telehealth project set out to help address these problems. Through the use of telehealth technology, the expertise of a physician can be extended across these complex geographical barriers. In many cases, it allows the physician to be brought “virtually” to the patient, rather than bringing the patient to the physician – a situation that is both more convenient and cost-effective.