For a health care system that supports millions of Veterans around the world, ensuring Veterans get the care they need can be a challenge – especially in rural areas and smaller towns. Although VA does have 153 medical centers and hundreds more community based clinics, sometimes you just need a doctor or a specialist.
Meanwhile, Veterans living at mile marker 0 – better known as Key West – seem to have it all: Beautiful beaches, a laid-back lifestyle, year round vacation weather, even a VA outpatient clinic located on the naval station for their primary care and mental health needs.
However, when time comes for a specialist; for a dermatology consult or an audiology review for example, a 6-hour round trip drive to Miami is needed. Or was needed. Already a pioneer for its computerized medical records, VA is also a leader in using telehealth technology to bring care closer to Veterans in variety of cases that used to require daylong trips.
“The motto of our telehealth program is to provide the right care, at the right time, in the right place,” said Pattianne Miller, Telehealth Clinical Technician at the Key West clinic. “By using this technology we can do that a lot of the time.”Home telehealth services are also available for some patients who need routine monitoring such as those suffering from diabetes, high-blood pressure and other chronic diseases. In every case, the technology used is secure and the information is transmitted only between the VA and the patient and is tracked in the patient’s medical records.
For patients in South Florida who live outside downtown Miami, this technology can save hours of travel for relatively simple appointments that, while important, are perfectly suited to the new technology. By the end of September, the Miami VA will have 30% of its patients enrolled in virtual care, with 15% of our patients using telehealth applications.
“I can get hearing aids here, for example, and get them calibrated with a specialist from Miami on the mobile All In One exam cart,” said Miller. “Instead of them having to make trips to Miami for routine maintenance we have the technology to do it here. They are so happy, they walk in having problems and walk out hearing!”
For the patient of the Key West clinic, this technology matches perfectly with the lifestyle of the island, says Miller.
“Many of our Veterans, they chose a lifestyle where they don’t want or need a car – they can bike everywhere they need to go here,” she said. “We are doing what we can to save them from having to travel and in a lot of cases are successful. This also saves the Miami VA a tremendous amount of money in travel reimbursement which means that funding can go to more technology and care. I think our patients like coming here because they know we do our best to care of them.”
