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

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...

...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...