**GAO-11-25SP**                      Published: Nov 17, 2010. Publicly Released: Dec 17, 2010.                  

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## Highlights

This is E-supplement to GAO-11-27. It provides information on participation in the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Rural Health Care Pilot Program - a program worth roughly $418 million funded through the Universal Service Fund - which provides funding to selected pilot projects for designing and installing regional and state broadband networks that serve rural health care providers, as well as the costs of advanced telecommunications and information services that ride over those networks. This e-supplement includes the questions asked and a summary of the answers given in a survey we conducted of representatives from projects participating in the Rural Health Care Pilot Program.

## Supplemental Material

### Background

This e-supplement provides information on participation in the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Rural Health Care Pilot Program - a program worth roughly $418 million funded through the Universal Service Fund - which provides funding to selected pilot projects for designing and installing regional and state broadband networks that serve rural health care providers, as well as the costs of advanced telecommunications and information services that ride over those networks. This e-supplement includes the questions asked and a summary of the answers given in a survey we conducted of representatives from projects participating in the Rural Health Care Pilot Program.

FCC originally selected 69 pilot projects to participate in the pilot program. Due to project mergers and withdrawals from the program, 61 projects had active contacts at the time of our survey. We conducted a Web-based survey of representatives from all 61 pilot projects to obtain their views on program requirements and how to improve the program, among other things. All 61 projects provided usable results.

We administered the survey from June 2010 to July 2010 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. A more detailed discussion of our scope and methodology and agency comments on the draft report are contained in our report entitled *Telecommunications: FCC's Performance Management Weaknesses Could Jeopardize Proposed Reforms of the Rural Health Care Program*, GAO-11-27 (Washington, D.C.: November 2010).

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### Copyright

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## Topics

Telecommunications

Access to health careBroadbandHealth care reformInformation accessInformation technologyPerformance managementPerformance measuresProgram managementRegional planningRural healthTelecommunicationsTelemedicinePilot programsProgram implementationRural areas