Golden Valley Health Centers Boosts Broadband Speeds to Enhance Health Records and Disaster Preparedness with Comcast Business Services

LIVERMORE, Calif., Feb. 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Comcast Business announced that Golden Valley Health Centers (GVHC), the Central Valley's most progressive non-profit health care system, is installing Comcast Business Ethernet services at its final site – totaling 20 clinical sites in Merced and Stanislaus counties. With boosted broadband speeds from Comcast Business, GVHC is able to rely on a stable and efficient connection, ensuring that physicians can update records in real time, access critical information and transmit data to an off-site disaster preparedness storage database daily. With the upgrade, the health care system will be moving from Internet speeds of 1.5 Mbps to nearly 100 Mbps.  

GVHC has grown from its humble beginnings of only one full-time medical doctor and dentist in 1972 to a staff of 120 clinicians, providing aid for low-income patients, patients with no insurance and single parent families. The health system sees thousands of patients each year, making it critical to support a high-volume of patient data received and updated daily.

With this technology upgrade, patients can expect an improved experience since much of an appointment is fully-dependent on effective broadband speeds -- from scheduling, to viewing MRIs and x-rays, to updating health records during exams. With a fast and speedy connection, providers can expedite the patient check-in process and maintain an efficient patient flow, minimizing wait times for visitors.

Comcast Business's high-speed connection also plays a crucial role in transferring data. In order to preserve patients' electronic health records, increased broadband is needed to transfer the hundreds of gigabytes of data collected daily from across GVHC's 20 sites to an off-network storage facility. This process occurs nightly and must be completed before the clinics re-open in the morning. This process would not be possible without secure, reliable and fast internet speeds.

"GVHC staff and providers situated across our Central Valley rely on high-speed connections to access and update patient information in a secure fashion in the organizations Practice Management (PM) system, as well as access Internet resources for insurance verification," said Tony Ortiz, Network Administrator III at Golden Valley Health Centers.

"Reliable and efficient solutions are critical to healthcare providers in today's increasingly digital environment," said Ted Girdner, Vice President of Comcast Business for Comcast's California Region. "GVHC is providing superior health care to the Central Valley, and we're pleased to provide a solution that enhances patient and provider experiences."

The broadband boost is so significant that, based on current utilization averages, GVHC will only be using about 25 percent of capacity. The additional bandwidth available will ensure that GVHC is able to scale in the coming years as health information technology continues to grow and advance.

About Golden Valley Health Centers
Golden Valley Health Centers (GVHC) is a Joint Commission-accredited, private, non-profit Federally Qualified Health Center system serving the Central Valley of California with an operating budget of approximately $80 million. Through its community health centers, it provides comprehensive primary medical and dental care to an ethnically diverse population, including migrant and seasonal farm workers, Southeast Asian refugees, and the homeless population of Modesto. GVHC has developed a system of 21 clinical sites and nine dental sites, including two free-standing women's health centers, four school-based centers and a homeless health care program.

To properly serve its patients and ensure access to care, GVHC's health centers are located in the rural and urban communities where its patients reside. All revenue comes from patient dollars and/or charitable sources. No patient is ever turned away because of inability to pay. To learn even more about GVHC, visit http://www.gvhc.org.

About Comcast Business
Comcast Business, a unit of Comcast Cable, provides advanced communication solutions to help organizations of all sizes meet their business objectives. Through a next-generation network that is backed by 24/7 technical support, Comcast delivers Business Internet, Ethernet, TV and a full portfolio of Voice services for cost-effective, simplified communications management.

For more information, call 866-429-3085.

Follow us on Twitter @ComcastBusiness and on other social media networks at http://business.comcast.com/social.

About Comcast Cable
Comcast Cable is the nation's largest video, high-speed Internet and phone provider to residential customers under the XFINITY brand and also provides these services to businesses.  Comcast has invested in technology to build an advanced network that delivers among the fastest broadband speeds, and brings customers personalized video, communications and home management offerings.  Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) is a global media and technology company.  Visit www.comcastcorporation.com for more information.

SOURCE Comcast Business

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