NEWSWEEK.COM 31
diseases, with an eye to spotting new strategies for
improving long-term health. And it has launched an
institute entirely dedicated to applying artificial in-
telligence approaches to health care.
The VA has also established a system for auto-
matically analyzing electronic health care records
throughout the system in order to spot improve-
ments in patient outcomes at any of its facilities, to
see if there are any innovations underlying an im-
provement that can be quickly shared throughout
all VA facilities. “We send teams to learn from those
sites that are doing well with outcomes, and then de-
ploy them to any sites that might be having trouble,”
says Joe Francis, a physician and chief improvement
and analytics officer at the VA. “You can’t do that
sort of thing in the private sector, because there are
too many competitive and time pressures.” To dig
out even more innovation, the VA sponsors a Shark-
Tank-style competition for all its employees, the most
recent of which inspired some 500 promising ideas
aimed at improving care or lowering costs.
The VA’s telehealth capabilities, too, are years
ahead of most other health care organizations.
Some 100,000 vets have logged more than a mil-
lion videoconference visits with VA clinicians, all of
which were entirely free. That’s a
critical service for the 30 percent
of VA patients who live in rural
areas. And many of those who
can’t or don’t want to conduct
the video visit from their homes,
perhaps because of privacy con-
cerns during an exam, will soon
be able to do so from one of a network of telehealth
exam “pods” the VA is setting up at Walmarts and at
American Legion and VFW sites. The first such pod
has already opened up in Eureka, Montana, serving
some 300 vets.
Tele-visits return large benefits both in reduced
costs and patient outcomes for chronic illnesses
such as diabetes and heart disease, which afflict
60 percent of adult Americans. They require fre-
quent monitoring and check-ins to avoid the sorts
of sudden health crises that can send a patient to
the emergency room and an in-patient stay, easily
costing a health care system tens of thousands of
dollars. “Patients who try it, like it,” says Leonie Hey-
worth, the physician who heads the VA’s telehealth
efforts. “If they have to fight traffic to get here theyREMOTE VISITS
Veterans have logged a
million videoconference
visits with VA clinicians, a
critical service for rural
resident. The VA also has
a “telegenomics” center.
Counter-clockwise from
top: Dr. Leonie Heyworth;
a plate of genetic material
for testing; Ernest Maas, a
homeless Navy veteran,
in Arlington, Virginia, in
2011 ; a mother, with her
5-month-old daughter,
checks in with her doctor
via video in 2 01 6.“WE WANT TO OFFER A BIG
REPERTOIRE OF TOOLS FOR DEALING
WITH STRESS, CHRONIC PAIN
AND OTHER WHOLE-HEALTH PROBLEMS.
WE’VE CHANGED THE CONVERSATION
HERE SO IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT DISEASE.”