ARCHES or the Advancing Rural Connections for Healthcare and E-health Services is a multi-million dollar project that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) funded Utah back in 2007 to participate in the FCC's Rural Health Care Pilot Program (RHCPP). Utah's ARCHES proposal was intended to expand and improve the telecommunications infrastructure connecting Utah's health care facilities to address growing bandwidth needs. This is an amazing opportunity to build infrastructure for the quickly changing healthcare field and the electronically-based demands, including Electronic Medical Records (EMR), Telehealth applications and other health information techonology.

Many of AUCH member sites have taken advantage of this opportunity and to date the following sites have fully implemented:

• Green River Medical Center

• Wayne Community Health Center

• Enterprise Valley Medical center

• Carbon Medical Service Association, Inc. (East Carbon and Helper)

• Wasatch Homeless Health Care, Inc.

The Utah Telehealth Network, co-grant coordinator, is also expecting to bring up Bear Lake Community Health Center (Garden City site) soon.

Would you like to learn more about ARCHES and the project here in Utah? Click here or contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  for additional information.