The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) https://www.va.gov provides telehealth in over 50 areas of specialty care at more than 900,000 sites nationwide and used telemedicine to provide 2.3 million episodes of care last year.
The VA is working to develop solutions to increase connectivity and access to telemedicine especially for underserved veterans. To further discuss how to provide more telehealth services and virtual care to all veterans, the event “Anywhere to Anywhere Together Telehealth/Virtual Care Thought Leader Summit” was hosted by the VA’s Center for Strategic Partnerships and the VHA Office of Connected Care in December 2018.
The Summit with experts from industry, government, and non-profits emphasized the need to develop collaborations with industry partners to amplify the use of emerging technologies to meet veteran’s needs. The event also featured discussion with virtual care experts and displayed innovative telehealth tools.
The VA and Walmart announced at the Summit, they are working together to start their new telehealth collaboration with the goal to reach underserved veterans. Walmart will donate space and operational support for VA-led telehealth services
The Telehealth Collaboration pilot will kick off in targeted locations that will consider the number of veterans living in the area and the health resources now offered. At a later date, the final locations selected will be announced.