“U.S. Army Medical Command has seen a 70 percent increase in virtual health amid COVID-19, especially in providing its beneficiaries greater access to mental health treatment, Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. R Scott Dingle said Wednesday.”
“’Virtual health, telemedicine has blown up as the restrictions of COVID hit our country … to ensure that we’re not exposing beneficiaries, patients, by coming into a facility or to a location,’ Dingle said in an Association of the U.S. Army webinar. ‘We have increased our virtual health 70 percent. It has been a phenomenal occurrence of increase in virtual health and the virtual machine platforms.’”
“Dingle credited the Defense Health Agency for largely leading the rapid scale up and success of telemedical capabilities across the military health system and treatment facilities, noting that the Army has been nested within the DHA’s work of expanding virtual health. Even with DHA’s leadership, the Army has taken its own role in supporting virtual care amid COVID-19, providing its own funding to bolster the technology and to provide virtual mental health care…”
“To support telemedicine and virtual behavioral health, the Army has leveraged telemedicine advancements within the civilian sector, implementing those preexisting technologies across the Army medicine enterprise to scale up quickly in recent months…” Read the full article here.
Source: Army Medical Command Sees 70% Boost in Virtual Health Care Amid COVID-19 – By Melissa Harris, July 31, 2020. GovernmentCIO.
