Iowa Health System will use a $17.7 million federal grant to further extend its broadband health-care network throughout the state.

The grant is part of more than $71 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) awards to Iowa organizations announced Friday. Iowa Health System will use the funding to construct approximately 30 wireless towers to provide “last-mile” connections to the health system’s fiber-optic network to health-care providers in some of the most remote areas of the state, said Cheri Bustos, an Iowa Health spokeswoman.

Launched in April 2009 by Iowa Health, the broadband data network is accessible solely to hospitals and health-care providers via a 3,200-mile fiber-optic backbone that extends from Chicago to Denver. The 100-megabyte network is currently used by all of Iowa Health’s hospitals as well as a number of non-Iowa Health organizations, among them Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines.

By mid-2012, Iowa Health expects the system will further expand to serve primary care physicians, home health-care providers, pharmacies, laboratories, community health centers and other organizations statewide. Owned and operated by Iowa Health, the network was among the first of 67 networks nationwide funded by a federal Rural Health Care Pilot Program.

The latest round of ARRA funding is part of $4.7 billion provided as part of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, designed to provide broadband access to areas that have limited or no access to broadband services.

The grant, which Iowa Health claims will create 100 jobs in the state and benefit 1.7 million residents, is expected to enable more independent physicians to establish electronic health records for their patients in rural areas. Similarly, the hospital system will be able to allow broadband access to homebound patients, which will result in lower-cost treatment for people with chronic illnesses, the organization said in a press release.

In addition to enabling Iowa Health to expand the network, the federal money will also allow for-profit health organizations to join the network, Bustos said. The initial rural health-care grant had limited participation to nonprofit hospitals.

“This really does take it to the next level,” she said. “This last round of funding provides access to that middle tier of health care, such as pharmacies, surgical centers and doctors’ offices. This is a good deal for patients, especially for a rural state like Iowa.”

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