Throughout the years, we have heard that veterans to not receive the care they need, even though most of the clinics have “state of the art” facilities. The VA system has been early adopter on electronic patient records among other types of technology that benefit both, the patient and the providers. The main complaint has been that VA centers are not strategically located and, therefore, veterans do not have proper access to the services offered. However, this is about to change.
The Department of Veteran’s Affairs will soon implement Telemedicine. With this concept they plan to reach to those veterans who cannot travel long distances to access the services of the VA clinics. Patients will have online visits with their primary care providers. They can discuss disease related problems, patients can receive advice and therapy changes among others. This will ensure continuity of care and better outcomes. The service will be available at first for states such as Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa. For example, in the case of Nebraska, they will bring specialists from the Omaha VA center to help take care of oncology patients.
Without any doubt, this is a step forward in taking care of our veterans and doing what we can to ensure the best quality of life they can have. Veterans have dedicated their lives and effort to give us the quality of life we have today, lets do whatever we can to say thanks. As a student pharmacist, I think this is a great initiative that sets the example of another technology implementation aimed for the greater good. Lets hope we can see some implementations in the pharmacy field as well.
More information can be accessed at: http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=8A3D27B44940462DB3A7DD15EEAC1F4D.
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