The three states with the largest number of veterans have been given slightly less than $1 million in federal grants to implement telemedicine and electronic health records systems to link to Veterans Administration hospitals for online consultations, according to healthdatamanagement.com.
More than $983,000 will go to helping rural hospitals and clinics in Virginia, Montana and Alaska set up telemonitoring programs that will allow veterans to receive medical care remotely, even when they are at home.
Studies have shown that people with chronic illnesses who are monitored do much better than those who are not, and often avoid hospitalizations and readmissions.
Telemonitoring helps people who are chronically ill follow doctors’ orders more easily, as information about what they’re doing gets transmitted back to healthcare facilities and can be corrected, or have intervention provided, as needed.
It allows a consulting physician to remotely monitor a patient's health status, and chronic conditions can be gathered in real time.
Best of all, it allows patients with chronic illnesses to live a more mobile life.
The Veterans Administration (VA) announced in May that it had signed a one-year contract with Authentidate for its Electronic House Call vital signs monitoring device and service and its Interactive Voice Response system, used by VA facilities for veterans on the Care Coordination Home Telehealth program.
The goal of the program is to improve overall patient health outcomes, reduce hospital readmissions and emergency hospital and doctor visits.
The joint initiative of the VA and the Department of Health and Human Services is part of VA’s program, launched in May 2011, to considerably expand its telemedicine capabilities.
The goal is to support 1.2 million consultations annually when fully implemented.
In July, the VA announced the Veterans E-Health & Telemedicine Support Act of 2012, which now allows providers affiliated with the VA to serve vets not only in the states where they practice, but also across state lines. In the past, providers needed to be licensed in the same state as their patients.
Edited by
Braden Becker
