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VA Shifts More Services to Telehealth, mHealth to Combat the Coronavirus
In an action plan released last week, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced its intention to ramp up telehealth and mHealth services to improve access to care for veterans and meet the expected surge in infected patients.
The Department of Veterans Affairs will be shifting more services to telehealth and mHealth platforms as it ramps up its efforts to deal with the Coronavirus pandemic.
The VA released a 262-page response plan this past week, including plans to use more connected health services for outpatient care, close certain locations on weekends, postpone elective and non-urgent medical procedures and create zones within its hospitals to separate care providers, those requiring care not related to the virus and those infected with the virus.
Included in this plan is a request that all VA clinics shift to an “all telehealth mode” and an increased reliance on virtual care to screen veterans at home before they go to a VA facility.
Much of the VA’s outpatient care would be handled by telehealth and mHealth services, including the Annie App, which sends automated text messages to veterans to help them focus on self-care and assist with follow-up services. In some cases, the VA may send mHealth tablets to veterans.
VA officials reported that 571 positive cases of COVID-19 had been reported at VA centers as of March 27, and nine veterans had died.
In addition, $20 billion is set aside in the Coronavirus relief bill passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump this past Friday.
For the VA, the new law gives the agency $14.4 billion to expand telehealth services at VA facilities and another $2.15 billion to expand Coronavirus-related services, including the purchase of mHealth devices and broadband expansion. It also authorizes the agency to expand telemental health services, enter into short-term agreements with telecommunications companies to provide temporary broadband services to veterans, temporarily waives the in-person home visit requirement and telehealth and phone calls as an alternative, and ensures that telehealth is available for homeless veterans and case managers in the HUD-VASH program.
The move to telehealth comes as the VA health system is already recognized as one of the nation’s largest telehealth networks, and VA Secretary Robert Wilkie says those services will be “dramatically expanding” in the next few weeks as the crisis deepens.
Roughly 1 million veterans have used telehealth to access care, according to the VA, which saw a 17 percent jump in use in 2019. The VA platform includes telehealth services and mHealth apps (including the availability to view medical records on Apple’s mHealth app), and VA-sanctioned doctors are now able to treat veterans via telehealth regardless of where they live.
