Another area that the town is exploring is telemedicine. Kean Spellman, the CEO of the beautiful Holy Cross Hospital, supports the telecommunications initiative. The hospital is one of the largest employers in the region, second only to government. We're expanding especially to outpatients. The hospital's telemedicine expansion plans fit perfectly into the overall economic development schemes.
People live longer so health care is a nice incremental industry.
Telemedicine has a huge potential for generating business. But, of course, the foundation upon which all these plans rest is an educated local workforce. Taos is working on this, too. But cyberspace is a brave new world. A trained workforce is not necessarily an advance-degreed workforce that could work to Taos' advantage.