Leroy Walker arrived at the county hospital short of breath. Walker, 65 and with chronic high blood pressure, was brought in by one of rural Greene County’s two working ambulances.
Nurses checked his heart activity with a portable electrocardiogram machine, took X-rays, and tucked him into Room 122 with an IV pump pushing magnesium into his arm.
“I feel better,” Walker said. Then: Beep. Beep. Beep.
The Greene County Health System, with only three doctors, has no intensive care unit or surgical services. The 20-bed hospital averages a few patients each night, many of them, like Walker, with chronic illnesses.
Greene County residents are some of the sickest in the nation, ranking near the top for rates of stroke, obesity, and high blood pressure, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Patients entering the hospital waiting area encounter floor tiles that are chipped and stained from years of use. A circular reception desk is abandoned, littered with flyers and advertisements.
But a less visible, more critical inequity is working against high-quality care for Walker and other patients: The hospital’s internet connection is a fraction of what experts say is sufficient. High-speed broadband is the new backbone of America’s health care system, which depends on electronic health records, high-tech wireless equipment, and telehealth access.
Greene is one of more than 200 counties with some of the nation’s worst access to not only reliable internet, but also primary care providers and behavioral health specialists, according to a KFF Health News analysis. Despite repeated federal promises to support telehealth, these places remain disconnected.
During his first term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order promising to improve “the financial economics of rural healthcare” and touted “access to high-quality care” through telehealth. In 2021, President Joe Biden committed billions to broadband expansion.
KFF Health News found that counties without fast, reliable internet and with shortages of health care providers are mostly rural. Nearly 60% of them have no hospital, and hospitals closed in nine of the counties in the past two decades, according to data collected by the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Click here for more information and a interactive map that shows where health care shortages and broadband deserts intersect.