Earl W. Ferguson, M.D., Ph.D., FACC, FACP, FACPM EWFerguson@SunBMT.com -Executive Director, Southern Sierra Telehealth Network; Director, Telemedicine, Outreach, and Rural Health Care Development, Ridgecrest Regional Hospital, 1081 N. China Lake Blvd., Ridgecrest, CA 93555 (760) 499-3901; Fax (760) 449-2254; www.rrh.org -Executive Director, Inyo County Telehealth Network, Southern Inyo Healthcare District, 501 E. Locust St., Lone Pine, CA 93545 -CEO, Sun BioMedical Technologies, Ridgecrest, CA 93555 Fax (760) 375-4726; www.SunBMT.com

Dr. Ferguson is a cardiologist, critical care and preventive medicine specialist and an independent consultant in telemedicine, telecommunications and computer applications to healthcare with a focus on development of sustainable business models.  He has been active in the American Telemedicine Association since it was founded and is active in the Business & Finance Special Interest Group.  He is CEO of Sun BioMedical Technologies founded in 2002 to apply systems biology (genomics and proteomics) approaches to early disease detection, primarily infectious diseases (including tuberculosis and malaria), but also chronic diseases.  

He is a Clinical Professor of Health Policy and Management, Loma Linda University, was on the Board of Directors of the California Telemedicine and eHealth Center 1997 to 2004 (Chair, 2002-4) and currently serves on numerous other boards and advisory committees, including the Board of Directors, California State Rural Health Association; Advisory Council, California Telehealth Network; External Advisory Council, National Space BioMedical Research Institute. 

He directed NASA's telemedicine and telecommunications applications to healthcare programs, before leaving federal service in 1996 to develop rural telemedicine applications.  He has been a proponent of Internet Telemedicine applications since 1994 and was the chief architect of the Southern Sierra TeleHealth Network (SSTN), established in 2000 to provide telemedicine and telehealth services to the rural high desert areas of California (12% of the land area of California; 134,000 inhabitants).  The SSTN is a rural telemedicine hub that provides more than 100 interactive high definition video telemedicine consultations a month, plus store-and-forward services (teledermatology, telepathology, and teleradiology) and e-health educational services.   RRH has implemented numerous other innovative health information technologies and maintains a National Library of Medicine Web Portal for community and provider access.  Dr. Ferguson is the PI on a United Healthcare/PacifiCare grant to develop a more extensive telehealth network to remote areas of Inyo County.  He is also the PI on a HRSA ORPH Rural Health Network Development Grant for rural community health screening, targeted interventions, education and outcomes research related to implementation of information technologies in frontier areas of Inyo County.