VA Working On Video Health Apps

The Veterans Affairs Department has rolled out a suite of apps for clinicians and patients that pull information from the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture electronic health record. Among the patient-facing apps is a secure messaging tool for communicating with doctors and nurses, but soon it plans to take that tool a step further, said Dr. Ross Fletcher, chief of staff at the Washington D.C. VA Medical Center, where many mobility pilots are underway.

"Right now that's done by typing, but in the relatively near future, we'll have a secure means of communicating visually with the patient," said Fletcher, who spoke Sept. 23 during a webinar hosted by the Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent. OSEHRA acts as a custodial agent to oversee open source electronic health record projects at the VA.

Visual consultations and appointments will be especially useful in the field of mental healthcare, he said.