History:

REACH (Realizing Education And Community Health) Montana is a consortium of healthcare providers linked to each other through live, interactive, video technology.  From its hub site in Great Falls, the REACH Montana Tele-health Network currently serves rural counties in the north central region of the state. Most of the member counties are frontier: large, remote and sparsely populated.  Population density averages 2.95 residents per square mile.  The network sites include Big Sandy, Chester, Chinook, Choteau, Conrad, Cut Bank, Fort Benton, Havre, Rocky Boy, Shelby, Benefis West Campus, Benefis East Campus, White Sulphur Springs, the Sletten Cancer Institute and Golden Triangle Mental Health.

The REACH Network is an evolution of the original telemedicine program beginning with tele-radiology developed by the former Montana Deaconess Medical Center in the fall of 1992 with sites in Choteau, Conrad and Fort Benton.

In September 1994, Montana Deaconess was awarded a $400,000 grant from the Rural Electrification Administration Distance Learning and Medical Link Grant Program (DLMLGP) to provide eight rural sites in north central Montana with tele-medicine and distance learning access to a hub site in Great Falls and beyond to other tele-medicine networks.

In 2004, with the backing of a grant from the Office for the Adancement of Tele-health, the network was upgraded to IP-network technology – allowing it to speak the language of the Internet. By employing a combination of connection technologies which include dedicated private IP circuits, internet based connections, as well as legacy ISDN capabilities; the REACH Tele-health Network can not only connect with site Montana and across America, but with anyone, literally, on earth.

REACH regularly connects to other telemedicine service providers in Billings, Missoula and Helena as part of the Montana Healthcare Telecommunication Alliance.  This Alliance was formed in 1997 to promote interoperability between current teleconferencing systems, decrease cost for the operation of networks and pursue legislative activities affecting telemedicine.

The REACH Network is dedicated to providing distance learning and medical link services using interactive telecommunications.

How to Schedule a Video Conference:

Scheduling a conference is easy!

Call your local regional hospital and ask for the REACH Site Coordinator.  The Coordinator will work with you to schedule your conference.

Call Benefis Healthcare - East Campus at 406-455-5588 or 406-455-4284, and ask for the REACH Telemedicine Coordinator.  The Coordinator will work with you to schedule your conference.

Equipment:

The REACH Network uses Polycom Video Units, a Polycom Accord MGC-100 MCU bridge, and dedicated full T1 lines operating at 384 kbs.

The Televideo Network is not to be used for:

1. Personal or unauthorized purposes;
2. Unauthorized commercial activities;
3. Unlawful purposes which violate applicable state and federal laws or regulations;
4. Transmitting threatening, obscene or harassing material or conduct;
5. Interfering with or disrupting network users, services or equipment;
6. Accessing information and resources classified as private, confidential, or unauthorized;
7. Utilizing the network to make unauthorized entry to other video link, computational, information or communication devices or resources.

Fun Facts:

Since 2003, the REACH Telehealth network has saved Northcentral Montana community members almost 1.5 million miles of travel. That’s 59.81 trips around the earth at the equator. Wow! 1,489,578 miles saved between 9/1/2003 and 2/28/06.

In the last six months, REACH community members have been spared 387,862 miles of traveling because the our Telehealth network brought patients and their providers together with televideo technology.

Home health monitoring, mental health consults, wound care management, neurology consultations, burn care consultations, genetic consultations, CT/MRI and tele-radiology, and orthopedic care and education are services north central Montanans have received in the 10 years since the inception of the REACH Telehealth Network.

In 2004 and 2005 our nation turned it’s televideo attention on Montana when the Treasure State played a pivotal role in two disaster preparedness drills that featured site-linking technologies. The REACH network connected with multiple sites on two Billings-based telehealth networks, EMTN and PHTN, plus METNET, the State of Montana’s Televideo arm, and with numerous other sites on VisionNet, Inc. These drills were an opportunity for telehealth technologies to prove their place in our nation’s safety and security infrastructure.