“For many health systems, the transition to virtual care during the pandemic was like night and day. Before COVID-19 hit, they delivered most of their care, if not all of it, in person. Within a matter of days into the public health emergency, that all changed.”
“That was not the case, however, for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, according to Christina Armstrong, a clinical psychologist at the VA’s Office of Connected Care.”
“’A lot of health care organizations around the world had to shift, or some just completely stopped providing any services [when the pandemic began]. They had no infrastructure in place whatsoever,’ she told MobiHealthNews.”
“’Both the DoD and VA absolutely did. We completely had our infrastructure already in place, because at both the VA and DoD this is part of our requirement for providing anywhere-to-anywhere service. So there were some shifts that we definitely had to make – huge, huge, huge shifts. But for the most part, we have the basic infrastructure in place which allowed us to continue.'”
“Armstrong, who previously worked in the Connected Health branch of the Department of Defense, says that there was a concerted push within these federal agencies for years to implement virtual care processes.”
“A number of policies at the VA made all the difference when care was forced online, according to Armstrong…” Read the full article here.
Source: The VA and DoD’s COVID-19 digital transformation – By Mallory Hackett, June 25, 2021. MobiHealthNews.
