February 08, 2012 - A single veterans hospital in rural Oregon saved more than $88,000 in travel expenses during fiscal year 2011 by shifting 3,224 patient encounters from in-person visits to telehealth services, according to a nursing executive there. The entire U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) Northwest Health Network, also known as Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 20, was able to trim upwards of $742,000 from its budget during the same period by facilitating 23,580 remote consultations."In the VA, we actually pay for miles," Tracy Weistreich, associate director for patient care services at the VA Roseburg Healthcare System, noted at the annual Telehealth Alliance of Oregon meeting in Portland last week. Roseburg is a small town off Interstate Highway 5 in southwestern Oregon, about halfway between Medford and Eugene, and the medical center there, like so many VA installations, has been dealing with an influx of wounded warriors from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. read more>>>
No comments:
Post a Comment