What Is Telehealth?
VA Telehealth Services uses health informatics, disease management and telehealth technologies to target care and case management to improve access to care, improving the health of veterans. Telehealth changes the location where health care services are routinely provided.
The value VA derives from telehealth is not in implementing telehealth technologies alone, but how VA uses health informatics, disease management and telehealth technologies to target care/case management thereby facilitating access to care and improving the health of veterans.
Technology
Newsletters
Videos
Technology
New technologies such as telehealth help improve health care services. For technology to work it must work for the people it is meant to help - patients and the professionals providing care.
Telehealth in VA helps ensure veteran patients get the right care in the right place at the right time and aims to make the home into the preferred place of care, whenever possible.
Newsletters
Several times a year, we publish the VHA Telehealth Quarterly, a newsletter that explains everything that is happening in VA Telehealth Services.
Past and present newsletters that detail everything that takes place within VA Telehealth Services and their programs are available for online viewing. More »
Videos
Be sure to watch our VA Telehealth Services videos. They do a great job of explaining Telehealth programs and how they can provide better access to healthcare for Veterans.
Synchronous
Synchronous, real-time or Clinical Video Telehealth requires the presence of both parties at the same time and a communication link between them that allows a real-time interaction to take place. Video-conferencing equipment is one of the most common forms of technologies used in synchronous telehealth. There are also peripheral devices that can be attached to computers or the video-conferencing equipment which can aid in an interactive examination.
Asynchronous
Asynchronous, or Store-and-Forward Telehealth, involves acquiring medical data (like medical images, biosignals, voice recordings, etc.) and then transmitting this data to a doctor or medical specialist at a convenient time for assessment offline. It does not require the presence of both parties at the same time.