UnitedHealth Group and Cisco announced a national telehealth network  (http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090715005917&newsLang=en) that is designed to expand health care access, particularly for those living in rural areas.  This announcement has interesting technological implications for the practice of hearing instrument dispensing, as it provides an infrastructure for remote monitoring and re-programming of hearing instruments.  While there have been other efforts in this area, this one is notable because of the size of UnitehHealth's national provider network (590,000 physicians and 4,900 hospitals) and Cisco's dominance with netweork business systems.  Is this a harbinger of things to come?