History of Telemedicine in Vermont

Vermont's experience with two-way interactive videoconferencing began in 1968 with the advent of the INTERACT network. This microwave system linked nine hospitals in Vermont and New Hampshire at its highpoint in the late seventies. This included: the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont in Burlington (now called Fletcher Allen Health care), Central Vermont Hospital in Berlin, Rockingham Memorial Hospital in Bellows Falls (now defunct), the White River VA Hospital in White River Junction, the St. Albans Correctional Facility, the Brattleboro Retreat, Claremont Hospital in NH, and Datmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, NH. Like many programs of its time, when the grant money ran out for the project in about 1980, the subscribing organizations attempted to run it on their own with limited success. The end finally came in 1985. INTERACT joined the other sixteen or so pilot programs in the United States that died when soft money dried up.

The next serious effort to establish a telemedicine network began in 1993 when Julie McGowan, PhD and John Evans, PhD, Associate Dean of the College of Medicine, established VTMEDNET. VTMEDNET was a text-based statewide system that actually began serious operations in 1995. All providers in the State of the Vermont had access to e-mail, text-based web browsing, the ability to do medLine searches, and other clinical information. This was expanded to another attempt at two-way interactive video in 1994 when Dr. Kevin Leslie formed a small Pathology network linking Rutland Regional Medical Center, Central Vermont Hospital, and Fletcher Allen Health Care via T-1 lines from NYNEX. At the same time, Michael McKnight of the Media Services department at Fletcher Allen was experimenting with desktop videoconferencing using a single ISDN line. The following year the decision was made to use the ISDN solution and form a network of nine distant sites (different from INTERACT's nine) to test out the effectiveness of desktop videoconferencing on a large scale. This project put Fletcher Allen at the forefront of telemedicine systems nationwide, and placed Vermont squarely in the future as well as the past history of this technology.

Fletcher Allen's telemedicine program was honored as one of the nation's top telemedicine programs as the first selection in Telemedicine and Telehealth Network's Hall of Fame. This followed selection two years in a row as a Top Ten Telemedicine Program in December, 1996 and, again, in December, 1997. Selection was based upon demonstrated organizational support, sustainable funding, provider acceptance, fulfillment of regional needs, and the monitoring of results. In addition, on October 8, 1996, the Fletcher Allen Telemedicine Project was featured on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather in a special segment by Health Correspondent, Dr. Bob Arnot.

Fletcher Allen's Telemedicine Program and the University of Vermont have co-sponsored the "Information Connection" in Burlington, a conference that has featured multiple specialty presentations and a full day of continuous telemedicine demonstrations from Fletcher Allen as well as a link to a US Navy vessel patrolling in the Persian Gulf.

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