About Us

   A Unified Approach to Telehealth in Alaska

	The Alaska Federal Health Care Access Network (AFHCAN) has deployed telemedicine solutions to 248 sites throughout Alaska to improve access to health services for federal and tribal beneficiaries.
AFHCAN designed a standard telehealth platform (the “AFHCAN cart” – shown at the right) of which nearly 300 have been deployed in Alaska. AFHCAN also developed a robust enterprise-wide software solution that is hosted on 42 connected servers throughout Alaska, built a statewide satellite-based IP network reaching to nearly 200 sites, and developed support and training services to implement and sustain telehealth at the AFHCAN sites.
AFHCAN began as an initiative of the Alaska Federal Health Care Partnership (AFHCP). The “Partnership” is a unique collaboration of federal agencies that has been in existence since 1994. The AFHCP has brought together the Department of Veteran's Affairs (VA), Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Homeland Security (U.S. Coast Guard - USCG), Indian Health Service (IHS), and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) for the purpose of providing health care to over 300,000 federal beneficiaries in the state of Alaska. The mission of the AFHCP is to: Provide federal beneficiaries ready access to quality, customer oriented, compassionate, comprehensive, cost effective health care, in a health care delivery system where the strengths of individual agencies are combined to provide quality customer service. The Alaska Federal Health Care Access Network (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 mission of AFHCAN is to: Improve access to health care for federal beneficiaries in Alaska through sustainable telehealth systems. 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:
	DoD/USCG                 75,000 VA                             75,000 PHN                           45,000 IHS/Tribal                 120,000 TOTAL                    315,500
Alaska Population 626,932 (Note: Some patients are beneficiaries of more than one organization)