CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Marshall University and two Huntington hospitals are building a $750,000 fiber optic network designed to improve health care in southern West Virginia, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., announced this morning. 

The "Metro Fiber Build" project will establish a high-speed broadband connection between Marshall's medical school and St. Mary's Medical Center and Cabell-Huntington Hospital.

Patients seeking care at rural health centers, such as the Lincoln Primary Care center in Lincoln County and Tug River Health Association in McDowell County, will be able to remotely receive care from physicians and specialists at Marshall and the Huntington hospitals.

"It's really a roundhouse effort to reach out to people in southwestern West Virginia," Rockefeller said today at the West Virginia Broadband Summit in Charleston. "This means people will have a choice and access on a remote basis to a physician. This is a massive step forward."

The network's construction starts in several weeks, and the project is expected to be finished by June.

The Huntington project is one of several planned by the West Virginia Telehealth Alliance, which has $8.4 million in federal funds and another $1 million in state money to improve computer networks at 300 health institutions across the state.

Rockefeller said many rural West Virginia patients are reluctant to seek care at large hospitals. The "telemedicine" initiative will allow them to go a local health center, where they can consult over the Internet with specialists, such as psychiatrists and cardiologists, who work at university hospitals and large medical centers.

Read more in Tuesday's Gazette.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Marshall University and two Huntington hospitals are building a $750,000 fiber optic network designed to improve health care in southern West Virginia, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., announced this morning. 

The "Metro Fiber Build" project will establish a high-speed broadband connection between Marshall's medical school and St. Mary's Medical Center and Cabell-Huntington Hospital.

Patients seeking care at rural health centers, such as the Lincoln Primary Care center in Lincoln County and Tug River Health Association in McDowell County, will be able to remotely receive care from physicians and specialists at Marshall and the Huntington hospitals.

"It's really a roundhouse effort to reach out to people in southwestern West Virginia," Rockefeller said today at the West Virginia Broadband Summit in Charleston. "This means people will have a choice and access on a remote basis to a physician. This is a massive step forward."

The network's construction starts in several weeks, and the project is expected to be finished by June.

The Huntington project is one of several planned by the West Virginia Telehealth Alliance, which has $8.4 million in federal funds and another $1 million in state money to improve computer networks at 300 health institutions across the state.

Rockefeller said many rural West Virginia patients are reluctant to seek care at large hospitals. The "telemedicine" initiative will allow them to go a local health center, where they can consult over the Internet with specialists, such as psychiatrists and cardiologists, who work at university hospitals and large medical centers.

Read more in Tuesday's Gazette.