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You run Madison Parish Hospital, in
Tallulah, in northeast Louisiana.

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A notice for rural telehealth
funding has arrived,

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and your board wants a recommendation
on Friday: apply, or do not apply.

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You have no analyst on staff.

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This video works through that decision
in RHIP Atlas, one question at a time,

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and ends with the notes
for a one-page brief.

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The hospital and the
decision are invented.

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The numbers are what the Atlas
showed in September 2026.

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Everything happens on one screen.

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At the top left is the search box.

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It finds parishes, cities, ZIP
codes, and facilities together.

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Below it are the controls.

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Map Layers sets the boundary
and the facility types.

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Health Indicator colors the map.

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Filters limits it to places
inside a range you set.

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The map is in the middle.

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Click a place and a summary opens.

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Hold Control and click
to select several places.

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On the right is RHIA, the chat assistant.

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It answers in plain language, cites sources,
and can change the map as it answers.

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Step one. Rural funding
starts with geography,

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so first ask whether the Atlas
treats your parish as rural.

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Type Madison into the search box.

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Several places share the name.

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The top row is Madison Parish, population
nine thousand five hundred thirteen.

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Your hospital is in the same list, with
its type and address. Choose the parish.

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A place summary opens.

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The header gives the classification,
Rural, and a badge for the health region.

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Madison Parish is in L D
H Region 8, the northeast.

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The Rural Profile card shows the rural
designation the platform holds for this

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place. It is marked Rural.

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Further down, the summary lists
fourteen facilities in the area,

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including your hospital, rural
health clinics, and pharmacies.

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Write this down. This is a
first screen, not a ruling.

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Funding programs use their
own rural definitions,

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and some also depend on the facility
type or on where patients live.

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The funding notice decides.

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Step two. A telehealth case
rests on a measured gap,

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and broadband access is
the obvious place to look.

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First, in Map Layers, switch on Parish.

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Next, open Health Indicator.

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The indicators are grouped.

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Open the group called Broadband
and Connectivity Coverage.

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Inside it, choose Broadband Deserts.

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The map now colors every
parish by broadband access.

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Each indicator has a short definition.

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This one is the share of residents who
lack broadband access, from Connect L A.

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Read the legend first. Darker means
more residents without service.

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The darkest parishes run along the
Mississippi River in the northeast,

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where Madison sits. Madison is shaded
lighter than its neighbor Tensas.

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We will come back to that.

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Open the parish summary again.

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At the bottom is the View Full
Profile button. Choose it.

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Each row gives the parish value, the
state average, and a status word.

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The status word compares the
parish with the state average.

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Every indicator has a cutoff, a
number of points it must differ by.

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Inside the cutoff, the word is Typical.

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Worse than the state by more
than the cutoff is Concerning.

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Better by more than the
cutoff is Favorable.

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The cutoffs here are five points
for broadband, three for poverty,

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four for food access, and one
and a half for digital literacy.

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For all four, a lower number is better.

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Broadband deserts is
twenty-five point nine percent,

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against a state average
of nineteen point nine.

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The status is Concerning.

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Poverty is forty-one point one percent,
against twenty point nine. Also concerning.

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Food access is three point zero
percent, against eleven point one.

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This measure is the share of residents
with limited access to healthy food,

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so three percent is a good result.

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It is more than four points under the
state figure, so it is marked Favorable.

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That does not help the case,
but it belongs in your notes.

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A reviewer will look for the
results that cut against you.

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The digital literacy gap is eighteen
point nine percent, against sixteen.

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That matters for telehealth,

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because a connection does not
help a patient who cannot use it.

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Step three. One number means little
alone, so put Madison next to a neighbor.

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At the bottom of the
summary, choose Compare.

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The comparison tool opens
with your parish on the left.

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On the right, open the Compare With list
and pick Tensas Parish, to the south.

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The state average sits alongside.

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A check mark sits on the
better value in each row.

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On broadband, Madison
has the better figure,

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twenty-five point nine percent against
fifty-three point four in Tensas.

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On poverty the check goes to Tensas,

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at twenty-eight point nine percent
against Madison's forty-one point one.

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Madison's need shows up more in income,
and Tensas has the larger connectivity gap.

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Which suits a telehealth project depends
on which gap the project is meant to close.

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The second comparison looks
across the state. Open Filters.

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Each indicator has a range slider, and
above them is a list of quick presets.

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Open the list and choose
Socioeconomic and Diabetes Risk.

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The preset describes itself and
highlights the sliders it sets.

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Under the note is a count.

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One hundred sixteen of five
hundred eighteen ZIP codes match.

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The map repeats the count.

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Places that do not match fade out, and
the colored ZIP codes share a profile.

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Treat a preset as a starting
hypothesis. Read the ranges,

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and move one slider at a time to see how
much the count changes before you quote it.

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Step four. A telehealth project
should fit the care already there.

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It may fill a gap, or repeat
a clinic down the road.

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In Map Layers, switch on acute hospitals,
federally qualified health centers,

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and rural health clinics.

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Each facility type has its own switch.

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The numbered circles are clusters.

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Each number is how many facilities it
holds, and clusters split as you zoom in.

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Single markers carry a letter for their
type: R for a rural health clinic,

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F for a federally qualified health
center, A for an acute hospital.

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Search for Madison Parish Hospital.

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The popup confirms the name, the
type, acute care, and the address,

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nine hundred Johnson Street in Tallulah.

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Get Directions opens the
route in Google Maps.

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Drive-Time Zones draws service
rings around the facility.

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The rings mark fifteen,
thirty, and forty-five minutes.

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The solid ring is fifteen minutes, and
the large dashed circle is forty-five.

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These are not routed drive times.

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The Atlas draws a plain circle around
the facility at a fixed distance:

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about five miles for fifteen
minutes, fifteen miles for thirty,

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and thirty miles for forty-five.

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It does not look at roads.

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Real trips follow the road network, and
bridges, river crossings, speed limits,

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and traffic can make a trip much
longer than the circle suggests.

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A place inside a ring may be
farther by car than it looks.

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The legend names the facility
and has a Clear Zones button.

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Use the rings to frame
a question about access,

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such as who lives beyond thirty minutes.

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For a real travel time, open Get
Directions and check the route.

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The rings are approximate.

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A blank area does not prove
that no service exists,

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because facility lists
come from registries.

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Call a facility before you
count on it as a partner.

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Step five. A hospital rarely
serves one parish only,

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and the service area decides which
numbers go into the application.

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Start with the region.
Switch on L D H Regions.

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Every parish takes the color of
its health region, from Region 1,

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Greater New Orleans, to Region 9,
the Florida Parishes and Northshore.

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Use these names when you
ask RHIA about a region.

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Madison Parish is in Region 8, the
northeast, shown here in olive green.

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Now build the service area.

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In Map Layers, make sure Parish is on,
and switch on L D H Region Outlines.

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Hold Control and click East Carroll.

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Its summary opens, and the
parish keeps a dark outline.

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Keep holding Control and click Tensas.

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Then click Madison. The three
selected parishes keep a dark outline.

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The summary shows the
last parish you clicked.

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Closing it clears the selection.

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RHIA now treats the three
parishes as one area.

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Regions are administrative, and a funding
program may define its own service areas,

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so use the definition in the notice.

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Write this selection down as a working
assumption for management to confirm.

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Step six. Ask RHIA to draft the brief.

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The Atlas sends your current selection with
the question, so select the place first.

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The question is specific.

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Is Madison Parish eligible for the
Rural Health Transformation Program,

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what need and access evidence
supports a telehealth project,

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and what should we verify before applying?

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The answer opens with an executive brief.

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It calls the parish fully
eligible under the first pathway,

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which relies on rural geography, then
covers need, capacity, and sustainability.

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The map followed the question.

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It moved to Madison Parish and
switched on the facility layers.

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At the end of the answer is a link to
download the full results as a C S V file.

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Then the sources, seven here.

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The small numbers in the
text point to this list.

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Open each one and confirm the
figure, the date, and the geography.

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Follow-up questions appear below.

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Pick the ones that test the answer:
what contrary evidence exists,

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and what is missing.

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Treat every claim as a question.

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RHIA is experimental and can be wrong.

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Check each program requirement and
cost-share figure against the funding notice,

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and do not enter patient names or
other protected health information.

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Step seven.

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Before anything reaches the board,
every figure needs a source and a date.

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At the top of the screen,
choose Data Sources.

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Datasets lists each dataset.

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Documents lists the
policy files RHIA reads.

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The glossary defines terms.

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Each dataset shows its source,
geography, and the year it was updated.

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Connect L A Broadband Profiles is
at parish level, updated in 2026.

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Note that next to the figure.

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To save the work, use Download
Data for a C S V of the map,

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the C S V link in the RHIA answer,
and the P D F button in the chat.

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If a number or facility looks
wrong, use Report a data issue.

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Here is what the notes say now.

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Madison Parish is rural, in Region 8,

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with a population of nine
thousand five hundred thirteen.

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Broadband gap twenty-five point nine
percent, poverty forty-one point one,

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and a digital literacy gap
above the state figure.

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Tensas has the larger broadband
gap and the lower poverty rate.

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The preset matched one
hundred sixteen ZIP codes.

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Fourteen facilities in the area, and
drive-time rings at fifteen, thirty,

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and forty-five minutes.

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A working service area of East
Carroll, Madison, and Tensas.

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A draft brief from RHIA, with
seven sources still to check.

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Before Friday, give each check
to a person who can sign it off.

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Date every figure, and label each line
as a calculated result, a source fact,

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a management assumption,
or an RHIA suggestion.

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The Atlas does not
decide whether to apply.

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It gives you a place, a measured
need, a comparison, the care nearby,

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a service area, and a cited draft,
and each needs an owner and a date.

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The written field guide has the
same seven steps, a prompt library,

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and a checklist for the leadership review.

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The last question for the board is whether
the project still improves rural health

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access after the grant ends.