VA Launches Telemed Pilot Project

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, through its annual industry innovation competition VAi2, recently selected American Well and SweetSpot Diabetes Care, Inc., to collaborate on separate initiatives that will bring telehealth services to veterans in their homes.

"First and foremost the value proposition here for veterans is the increase in access to care that they otherwise struggle to be able to obtain due to either distance, wait times, or other complications," Jonah Czerwinski, director of VAi2, told InformationWeek Healthcare. "The ability to connect patients to providers, patients to specialists, and specialists to providers in a secure, reliable way will integrate well with the continuity of care that VA has been preserving through the electronic health record called VistA."

The pilot project, which will last 18 months, calls for American Well to roll out its Online Care service at two locations, one in Minnesota and the other in Nebraska...