Telehealth Kiosks Give Homeless Veterans a Link to Healthcare, Other Services

A non-profit that targets veteran homelessness is using telehealth to expand access to mental health and other services.

Soldier On, which was launched in 1994 in Pittsfield, MA and now serves thousands of veterans in the Northeast, recently Partnered with Let’s Talk Interactive to leverage telemedicine kiosks and telehealth platforms in transitional and permanent housing and jail programs.

The kiosks allow the organization’s 80 full-time case workers to conduct virtual visits with veterans who might otherwise ignore or skip appointments for care. They also give the organization a platform to help veterans with other issues, including financial literacy, social services, legal representation, housing needs and even employment counseling.

“It’s a great platform for connecting with veterans,” says Bruce Buckley, Soldier On’s CEO. Veterans “generally feel more comfortable in their own environment, and this gives them a chance to connect when and where they need to make that connection. When you’re in someone else’s office, you’re a visitor, and that isn’t always comfortable.”

“It’s no secret that many veterans suffer from anxiety, depression, anger, and PTSD,” Buckley said in a press release earlier this year announcing the partnership with LTI. “These emotional hurdles can lead to drug use, loss of support from family members, vagrancy and in some cases, incarceration. The ability to give veterans access to the mental health support they need right at their fingertips will assist them in dealing with these challenges and help prevent them from repeating behaviors that lead to these unfortunate circumstances and get on the path to living a productive, independent life.”

“Telehealth is a natural fit for that,” says Arthur Cooskey, founder and CEO of LTI, which provided telehealth stations to schools throughout Florida’s panhandle region for telemental health services in the wake of Hurricane Michael in 2019. The company also works with health systems and prisons.

There are roughly 67,000 homeless veterans in the US, out of a total homeless population of more than 630,000, and many of them have underlying physical and mental health issues that aren’t addressed when the more pressing issues are finding food and shelter every night. Organizations like Soldier On have sprung up in recent years to address the problem through programs that begin with shelter and food and then expand to other services.

Soldier On, for instance, builds transitional and permanent housing for veterans, through a partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Prior to developing a connected health platform, their care workers were often on the road, travelling throughout the Northeast, connected with veterans wherever they could find them to offer counseling and other support.

“We don’t have offices – we have a bunch of cars and RAV-4s,” says Buckley. “And we tell them, ‘You’re supposed to get to a certain location at a certain time.’ “It’s not that they don’t want to go to the doctor or get help; it’s that they don’t know how to get there.”

The telehealth platform, he says, is a critical tool to help veterans to transition out of homelessness.

“They have a lot of difficult getting any traction,” he says. “This at least gives them something to count on.”

Buckley says Solider On will use that platform not only to provide more services for veterans, but also to expand its reach outside the four states – Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania – in which it operates. He envisions an online virtual network in which different veterans’ organizations and healthcare providers can collaborate to bring help to veterans wherever that might be.