News

Summaries of open source, health care, or health IT news and information from various sources on the web selected by Open Health News (OHNews) staff. Links are provided to the original news or information source, e.g. news article, web site, journal,blog, video, etc.

See the following -

Veterans Affairs Research Supports CDC Recommendation To Screen Baby Boomers For Hepatitis C

Press Release | Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD) | November 2, 2013

In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended a one-time screening for all Americans born between 1945 and 1965. It is estimated that 1 in 30 baby boomers has been infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and most don't know it. HCV is a serious liver disease including liver cancer, which is the fastest-rising cause of cancer-related deaths and the leading cause of liver transplants in the US. Read More »

Veterans Affairs Selects HP To Continue Support Of VistA System

Press Release | Hewlett-Packard (HP) | November 16, 2012

HP today announced it has been awarded a five-year, $39 million contract from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to continue providing operations and maintenance software applications support for VA’s Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA). Read More »

Veterans Affairs Sets Sights On Suicide Prevention

Crystal Dey | Echo Press | June 5, 2013

Twenty-two veterans die by suicide every day in the U.S. Any suicide statistic is too great a number, but taking into consideration the total U.S. population (315 million) and the number of veterans (22 million), that percentage is disproportionately high. Read More »

Veterans Affairs Tackles Homelessness Among Vets In Pacific Islands

Clarissa V. David | Saipan Tribune | August 24, 2012

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has made “great” progress the last few years in addressing homelessness among veterans-one of the areas that the federal agency is focused on as part of its efforts to bring about a “more effective” system in taking care of those who have served in the nation's armed forces. Read More »

Veterans Affairs, Defense Depts. Spend Billions In Effort To Coordinate Records

Hannah Winston | The Center for Public Integrity | August 27, 2013

After two years and more than $1 billion spent, integrated health records system canceled Read More »

Veterans Affairs: We want the DOD to pick us for its new EHR

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | March 14, 2014

The VA will be adding its competitive bid to a host of commercial offerings, said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki during a hearing this week, to give the DOD more options as it selects a new EHR system to replace the aging AHLTA suite. Read More »

Veterans Affairs’ Annual Report Describes Successful ROI, Deployment Of Telemedicine, Telehealth Programs Across U.S.

Press Release | GlobalMed | April 18, 2013

Scottsdale, Arizona-based GlobalMed Deepens Telemedicine Partnership with VA to Help Veterans Living in Rural Areas Receive Quality Healthcare Read More »

Veterans Could Receive Care at Native Clinics

Staff Writer | The Tundra Drums | May 14, 2012

An agreement that could allow rural Alaska veterans to receive healthcare benefits at Native health clinics for the first time was commended last week by Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich. Read More »

Veterans Health Administration Launches Mobile Healthcare Initiatives

Greg Slabodkin | FierceMobileHealthcare | May 12, 2013

[...] To better address the medical needs of today's veterans, the VHA has launched a number of mobile healthcare initiatives. Neil Evans, M.D., and Kathleen Frisbee, MPH, Ph.D.c, who co-direct the VHA's Connected Health Office, spoke with FierceMobileHealthcare about the agency's mHealth pilot programs. Read More »

Veterans Health Administration Thinks Key to Interoperability May Be in the Cloud

Joseph Conn | Modern Healthcare | January 9, 2017

The giant Veterans Health Administration is poking its head into the cloud to see if therein lies the key to sharing data within and outside of its sprawling healthcare delivery system. The goal of the Digital Health Platform is to pull patient data from the VA, military and commercial electronic health record systems, applications, devices and wearables and send it to a patient's healthcare team in real-time. That would allow patients to more easily obtain health care from physicians and hospitals outside of VA facilities, but some experts say a cloud-based platform also leaves it vulnerable to hackers...

Read More »

Veterans In Rural Areas To Get Expanded Access To Health Care

Press Release | Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) | September 12, 2012

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) Eric K. Shinseki today announced a joint effort to expand health care delivery to veterans living in rural areas. Read More »

Veterans Journal: Retirees Spend 27% Less On Health Under TRICARE

George W. Reilly | Providence Journal | August 11, 2013

According to the Congressional Budget Office, military retirees spend 27 percent less for health care under TRICARE, the Defense Department’s managed-care provider, than they did when the program began in 1996. Read More »

Veterans Outreach Project To Spend $1 Million On Facebook Ads This Year

Joseph Marks | Nextgov | July 18, 2013

A Veterans Affairs Department outreach campaign that spent $2 million on Facebook advertising last year plans to spend an additional $1 million this year, VA officials said on Thursday. Read More »

Veterans Still Face Disproportionate Unemployment

Geoff Whiting | FierceGovernment | November 8, 2012

Despite fedeal assistance programs amounting to $12 billion during the last fiscal, veterans who served after Sept. 2001 are disproportionately unemployed, says the Congressional Research Report. A large reason for that may be the relative youth of the recent veteran population, the report says. Read More »

Veterans Still In Fight – With VA

Kathleen Miller | The Journal Gazette | November 13, 2012

With as many as 1 million troops due to become veterans in the next five years, on top of the 22.3 million already in the system, the agency is staggering under backlogs in disability compensation claims, bottlenecks in mental health care and criticism over a general lack of accountability.

Read More »