Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium
Health Information & Technology
4000 Ambassador Drive; 3rd Floor
Anchorage, Alaska 99508
Toll Free (877) 885-5672
Phone (907) 729-2260
Fax (907) 729-2269
Email afhcansales@afhcan.org
© Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium 2000-2007
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About Us Home
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The Alaska Federal Health Care Access Network (AFHCAN), now in its ninth year of operations to improve access to health care for federal beneficiaries in Alaska through sustainable telehealth systems. AFHCAN continues to evolve and expand its services within Alaska where the number of users and clinical services has grown significantly over the years and now connects more than 700 providers spread over 250 sites – more than 90% of which are not accessible through the road system.
AFHCAN began as an initiative of the Alaska Federal Health Care Partnership (AFHCP) - a unique collaboration of agencies that provide care to more than 300,000 Federal beneficiaries throughout Alaska. AFHCP seeks to overcome the inherent difficulties of providing health care services in Alaska by having the partners - Veterans’ Affairs, U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, U. S. Coast Guard, Indian Health Service (IHS), and Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) - work together rather than separately. The mission of AFHCP is to provide federal beneficiaries with ready access to quality, customer-oriented, compassionate, comprehensive, and cost-effective health care, in a delivery system where the strengths of individual agencies are combined to provide quality customer service.
AFHCAN began as a project in 1998 to improve health care for federal beneficiaries using modern telemedicine technology. During the early years of the project there was overwhelming response for creating a store-and-forward telemedicine system in Alaska. Clinical needs assessment indicated that primary care, otolaryngology and cardiology were those services most needed and amendable to store-and-forward applications.
The AFHCAN project supports beneficiaries of IHS and tribal organizations, the Department of Defense, U.S. Coast Guard, and the VA. The project also provides benefits to state Public Health Nursing (PHN) offices. These beneficiaries represent approximately half of the states total population, as shown below:
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DoD/USCG 75,000
VA 75,000
PHN 45,000
IHS/Tribal 120,000
TOTAL 315,500
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Alaska Population 626,932
(Note: Some patients are beneficiaries of more than one organization)
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Clinical services have greatly expanded, and the impact on patient care has subsequently grown as more than 68% of all cases now prevent patient travel. Health issues are being identified earlier – as evidenced by the fact that 8% of all telehealth cases actually cause patient travel. Through growing acceptance of telehealth, Alaska providers continually provide feedback and request new products and features. As a part of its mission, AFHCAN continues to review, develop, and deploy new telehealth technologies. After extensive market surveys, evaluations, in-house testing, and working with manufacturers; the AFHCAN carts now support live video conferencing and the number of supported biomedical peripherals on the cart have tripled. (This is all offered within the same four (4) square feet of floor space in a small clinic.)
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