According to Connected Tennessee’s published report, Broadband: Transforming Tennessee’s Healthcare Sector, 76 percent of the businesses in Tennessee’s Healthcare sector use broadband for their business functions, a 29 percent increase in four years. Within Tennessee, the report shows, the Healthcare sector has a higher-than-average broadband adoption rate.

Additional findings from this report include: 

More than four out of five Internet-connected businesses in Tennessee’s Healthcare sector (82 percent) are using their connections to purchase or place orders for products or services, nearly two-thirds (65 percent) are researching ways to make their businesses more efficient, and 62 percent are using the Internet to market or advertise their products and services. Furthermore, almost half (48 percent) are using the Internet to recruit employees by advertising job openings online.

Businesses’ median broadband download speed is 5.1 Mbps; Tennessee’s Healthcare sector owns higher speeds than similar businesses in other states. 

Sixty-five percent of Internet-connected businesses in Tennessee’s Healthcare sector report communicating with their current customers and patients via the Internet, 52 percent offer the convenience of online billing, 36 percent provide customers support for their products or services via the Internet, and one-third (33 percent) accept real-time payments for services and products.

Over one-half of Tennessee’s Internet users (57 percent, or approximately 2.2 million adults) utilize e-Health services.

Low-income Internet users whose annual household incomes were less than $25,000, had no college education, or lived in rural areas were significantly less likely to utilize e-Health services than average. 

Internet users in rural Tennessee were more likely to utilize e-Health services than average rural adults.

"The ability for patients and doctors to connect electronically, whether it’s for consultation, treatment, or online billing, is becoming the norm in healthcare practices around the nation and broadband adoption is the catalyst of this trend,” said Corey Johns, Connected Tennessee executive director. “For Tennessee to match the national average of broadband adoption and our healthcare sector to lead all industries in the state, it’s a promising signal that businesses are understanding the significance broadband adoption can have on their productivity and ensures our competitiveness with the nation.”