Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • ESG: THE NEW IMPERATIVE
Subscribe
  • My Account
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Current News
    • COVID-19
    • Providers
    • Insurance
    • Government
    • Finance
    • Technology
    • Safety & Quality
    • Transformation
    • People
    • Regional News
    • Digital Edition (Web Version)
    • Patients
    • Operations
    • Care Delivery
    • Payment
    • Midwest
    • Northeast
    • South
    • West
  • Digital Health
  • Insights
    • ACA 10 Years After
    • Best Practices
    • Special Reports
    • Innovations
  • Data/Lists
    • Rankings/Lists
    • Interactive Databases
    • Data Points
  • Op-Ed
    • Bold Moves
    • Breaking Bias
    • Commentaries
    • Letters
    • Vital Signs Blog
    • From the Editor
  • Awards
    • Nominate/Eligibility
    • 100 Most Influential People
    • 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives
    • Best Places to Work in Healthcare
    • Excellence in Governance
    • Health Care Hall of Fame
    • Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards
    • Top 25 Emerging Leaders
    • Top 25 Innovators
    • Diversity in Healthcare
    • Women in Healthcare
    • - Luminaries
    • - Top 25 Diversity Leaders
    • - Leaders to Watch
    • - Luminaries
    • - Top 25 Women Leaders
    • - Women to Watch
  • Events
    • Conferences
    • Galas
    • Virtual Briefings
    • Webinars
    • Custom Media Event: ESG Summit
    • Transformation Summit
    • Women Leaders in Healthcare Conference
    • Social Determinants of Health Symposium
    • Leadership Symposium
    • Health Care Hall of Fame Gala
    • Top 25 Women Leaders Gala
    • Best Places to Work Awards Gala
    • Top 25 Diversity Leaders Gala
    • - Hospital of the Future
    • - Value Based Care
    • - Supply Chain Revenue Cycle
    • - Hospital at Home
    • - Workplace of the Future
    • - Strategic Marketing
    • - Virtual Health
  • Listen
    • Podcast - Next Up
    • Podcast - Beyond the Byline
    • Sponsored Podcast - Healthcare Insider
    • Video Series - The Check Up
    • Sponsored Video Series - One on One
  • MORE +
    • Advertise
    • Media Kit
    • Newsletters
    • Jobs
    • People on the Move
    • Reprints & Licensing
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. Finance
March 22, 2013 01:00 AM

VA, U.K. health service team up on IT

Joseph Conn
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Reprints Print

    The healthcare arm of the Veterans Affairs Department and the United Kingdom's National Health Service are teaming up under a three-year agreement to swap leaders, staff and ideas about the use of healthcare information technology by the two huge government-financed systems, according to a new joint report

    The 90-page document, “Making Connections (PDF),” explores what its authors call a “transatlantic exchange to support the adoption of digital health” between the U.S.' Veterans Health Administration and the NHS. The report, produced by 2020 Health, a U.K. think tank with public and private support, was jointly funded by grants from the NHS and the Robert Bosch Corp., and starts with a side-by-side comparison of the two taxpayer-funded healthcare systems.

    The VA serves a population of 23 million veterans, of whom 8.3 million are enrolled in the VHA, compared with 53.2 million people served by the NHS. The VHA's 2012 budget of $53 billion is around one-third that of the NHS' $160 billion budget, the report said. The average age of a VHA enrollee is 62, with more than 40% aged 65 and older. VHA patients are typically sicker than most Americans across a plethora of costly chronic conditions, including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, depression, congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Many of the patients could be better served by various existing and emerging information technologies, according to the report. And while the NHS covers all ages of the population, providing care to all residents of the U.K.—“free at the point of delivery, irrespective of personal wealth”—including 11 million children under age 18, the proportion of the population in the U.K. age 65 and over is expected to rise 42% to 18 million by 2025, pushing up expected costs.

    According to the report, with the collaboration beginning this year, both organizations expect to learn from each other in five areas: a general digital transformation of healthcare to improve patient outcomes; home telehealth, that is, the use of remote patient monitoring for chronic-care management; telemedicine and video conferencing between clinicians and patients to replace face-to-face visits; mobile health, using a range of devices to empower both clinicians and patients with the information they need to provide more effective care; and the use of secure messaging and personal health records to support provider/patient communications.

    In a foreword to the report, Dr. Adam Darkins, the chief consultant for telehealth services at the VHA's Office of Patient Care Services, said large, integrated delivery systems such as the VHA and NHS “are uniquely placed to develop and refine new models of care that use innovative new technologies to provide care to virtually to patients.”

    “Virtual care is not a panacea for all the challenges facing healthcare,” Darkins said, but these technologies can “offer the timeliness and convenience of access to care; benefits we have come to expect in other areas of our lives with on-line banking and shopping.”

    Darkins, a neurosurgeon, spearheaded a VHA push in 2003 into care coordination via telehealth.

    Peter Groen retired from the VA after working 34 years in healthcare information technology, lastly as the director of the health IT sharing program at the VA. He said people at the VA and the NHS have been talking “as far back as I can remember, at least 20 years, with lots of visits going back and forth and exchanging tools.” Groen, co-founder and senior editor of Open Health News, a website that tracks the use of open source software in healthcare, said this new exchange is a continuation of those earlier efforts.

    There has been discussion within the past year or so about a grass-roots campaign to persuade the NHS to pilot test the VA's VistA electronic health-record system at a few of its hospitals, but Groen doesn't see this latest talent- and idea-swapping initiative as a precursor to that.

    “They've got these companies and not-for-profit groups in England that are still pushing VistA,” Groen said. “I don't expect that to happen. With any bureaucracy like the VA—and the NHS is so much bigger—they don't get pushed. On the VA side, they'll say, look at some of that mobile activity the NHS uses.” But, Groen said, “by the time it pops out at the other end, it doesn't look the same.”

    “Innovation has occurred,” he said, “because they were inspired” by the other organization, but the finished product will be uniquely its own.

    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Send us a letter

    Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.

    Recommended for You
    Copy of transparencyhospital costs_0001_i copy_i.png
    Fines kicking in after slow start to hospital transparency rule
    vaccine-money_i.png
    U.S. diverts COVID-19 funds to secure vaccines amid stalemate
    Sponsored Content
    Daily Finance Newsletter: Sign up to receive daily news and data that has a direct impact on the business and financing of healthcare.
    Get Newsletters

    Sign up for enewsletters and alerts to receive breaking news and in-depth coverage of healthcare events and trends, as they happen, right to your inbox.

    Subscribe Today
    MH Magazine Cover

    MH magazine offers content that sheds light on healthcare leaders’ complex choices and touch points—from strategy, governance, leadership development and finance to operations, clinical care, and marketing.

    Subscribe
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • RSS

    Our Mission

    Modern Healthcare empowers industry leaders to succeed by providing unbiased reporting of the news, insights, analysis and data.

    Contact Us

    (877) 812-1581

    Email us

     

    Resources
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise with Us
    • Ad Choices Ad Choices
    • Sitemap
    Editorial Dept
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Code of Ethics
    • Awards
    • About Us
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Modern Healthcare
    Copyright © 1996-2022. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Current News
      • COVID-19
      • Providers
      • Insurance
      • Government
      • Finance
      • Technology
      • Safety & Quality
      • Transformation
        • Patients
        • Operations
        • Care Delivery
        • Payment
      • People
      • Regional News
        • Midwest
        • Northeast
        • South
        • West
      • Digital Edition (Web Version)
    • Digital Health
    • Insights
      • ACA 10 Years After
      • Best Practices
      • Special Reports
      • Innovations
    • Data/Lists
      • Rankings/Lists
      • Interactive Databases
      • Data Points
    • Op-Ed
      • Bold Moves
      • Breaking Bias
      • Commentaries
      • Letters
      • Vital Signs Blog
      • From the Editor
    • Awards
      • Nominate/Eligibility
      • 100 Most Influential People
      • 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives
      • Best Places to Work in Healthcare
      • Excellence in Governance
      • Health Care Hall of Fame
      • Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards
      • Top 25 Emerging Leaders
      • Top 25 Innovators
      • Diversity in Healthcare
        • - Luminaries
        • - Top 25 Diversity Leaders
        • - Leaders to Watch
      • Women in Healthcare
        • - Luminaries
        • - Top 25 Women Leaders
        • - Women to Watch
    • Events
      • Conferences
        • Transformation Summit
        • Women Leaders in Healthcare Conference
        • Social Determinants of Health Symposium
        • Leadership Symposium
      • Galas
        • Health Care Hall of Fame Gala
        • Top 25 Women Leaders Gala
        • Best Places to Work Awards Gala
        • Top 25 Diversity Leaders Gala
      • Virtual Briefings
        • - Hospital of the Future
        • - Value Based Care
        • - Supply Chain Revenue Cycle
        • - Hospital at Home
        • - Workplace of the Future
        • - Strategic Marketing
        • - Virtual Health
      • Webinars
      • Custom Media Event: ESG Summit
    • Listen
      • Podcast - Next Up
      • Podcast - Beyond the Byline
      • Sponsored Podcast - Healthcare Insider
      • Video Series - The Check Up
      • Sponsored Video Series - One on One
    • MORE +
      • Advertise
      • Media Kit
      • Newsletters
      • Jobs
      • People on the Move
      • Reprints & Licensing