The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has long been ahead of the private sector in health IT. Its VistA electronic health record (EHR) system, for example, was in use throughout the VA's hospitals and ambulatory clinics long before non-VA providers began to adopt EHRs en masse in the past few years. And as recent VA figures show, the department has also left the private sector in the dust in the area of telehealth. Last year, almost half a million veterans received some of their care remotely, either through virtual visits, home monitoring, or a store and forward system, according to Adam Darkins, MD, who leads VA's telehealth program.
