The Veterans Health Administration has been working a deal with Uber, the ride service to help rural veterans get to their appointments. A test has been in place since July at the VA Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee. Joining the Federal Drive with Tom Temin in studio with more on this and other initiatives she’s working on, the innovation specialist at Memphis, Dr. Indra Sandal…
Tom Temin: And you are an innovation specialist at VA and you are part of a cohort of innovation specialists. Let’s talk about that program. Because there’s lots of interesting projects going on, aren’t there?
Indra Sandal: Only 33 VA Medical Centers all across the country is part of the VHA innovators network. What does that mean? That means that innovation, which we are doing in VA is very cutting-edge technology or some new programs, which we are trying to bring it from the outside or from the inside…
Tom Temin: So basically then, you have adopted Uber Health and made it kind of a taxi dispatch system, only that is HIPAA compliant?
Indra Sandal: HIPAA compliant and also a lot of stuff for the veteran but the other piece which you’re talking about in January, by all these lessons, which we are learning, we are also working with the Uber Health that how we can increase the people who are in that pool of the Uber drivers considering some of the third parties, because there are some third parties also there, which is Uber or Lyft. Beyond that there are people who are only driving in the rural area. Can you bring that network in the Uber network and use that network together to get the people who are in the rural population, so they are working on it. And we are hoping that by next year, we will get that system. So we will have the drivers, real Uber drivers who are only specifically assigned to pick the riders who are living in a rural population… Read the full interview here.
