VA’s Dr Michael Ohl at the Iowa City VA Health Care System www.iowacity.va.gov and his team are conducting a study called “Telehealth Collaborative Care” to improve the quality of care for veterans with HIV who live far from specialty clinics. Approximately 18 percent of the 26,000 veterans under VA care for HIV live in rural areas. These veterans have limited access to high quality HIV specialty clinics.
The study involving about 800 veterans is focusing on rural areas near San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta. Each of these cities have rural areas which has a VA hospital with an HIV specialty clinic
Dr. Ohl reports, “We know that compared to their urban counterparts, rural veterans with HIV entering care with a more advanced illness are less likely to receive the latest advances in HIV treatment, and therefore have lower survival rates.”
Ohl’s study is exploring rural veterans’ interest in using video telehealth at close-by VA Community-Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOC) to maintain ongoing care. Veterans with HIV who live closer to a primary care clinic or a CBOC than to a specialty clinic and who have at least a 90 minute drive to one of the cities involved in the study are being offered the telehealth option. Now veterans are able to telecommunicate via video at local CBOCs with HIV specialists located at a distance larger facility.
HIV pharmacists, psychologists, and nurse-care managers may also be included in the videoconferences. A nurse onsite with the veteran at the outpatient clinic can administer treatment if prescribed by the specialist.
Veterans can also meet with their primary care physician onsite. The primary care clinic and specialty care clinic can then communicate to determine how best to co-manage the veterans’ care.
Through interviews with the veterans, Dr. Ohl and his team are finding that most of those offered telehealth are choosing to take advantage of the option. The VA now offers close to 50 telehealth specialties. During fiscal year 2016, more than 700,000 veterans completed about 2 million telehealth appointments.
Go to www.hsrd.research.va.gov/research/abstracts.cfm?Project_ID=2141702405 for more information on the HIV study.