Eureka VFW hosts pilot project for veteran care
EUREKA – A potential national breakthrough in veterans’ health care is being piloted in an unlikely rural location.
On Wednesday, VFW Post 6786 in downtown Eureka held the grand opening for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ first remote teletech exam room, dubbed the VA “Atlas.” The exam room – a small, private pod for virtual appointments with doctors in the VA health network – was installed in Eureka after the VA identified the post for its isolation and inaccessibility to veterans’ health-care services.
Even in good weather, Eureka is an hour’s drive from the nearest hospital and over four hours from the VA Medical Center in Helena.
The project is a collaboration between the VA, VFW, the American Legion and global health-care company Philips. It is part of VA Secretary Robert Wilke’s efforts to improve health care for veterans, and especially the 5.2 million rural veterans the VA says it serves.
“About a year ago, the secretary stated as his highest priority that every veteran would have access to health care,” said Deborah Lafer Scher, executive adviser to the Secretary of the VA, at Wednesday’s ceremony. Atlas was conceived to “bring [health care] to rural veterans across America in a way that was personal to them, convenient to them, meaningful to them and addressed their needs,” she said.
“You have come together and solved one of the biggest challenges that we have in health care: how do we deliver high-quality health care to rural Americans,” she added.
National representatives from the VA and Philips began meeting at the Eureka VFW as far back as a year ago to gather input on how Atlas would be most useful to veterans.
“It’s not just about providing some technology … so we came here, we sat in this room for two days,” said Sean Hughes, head of design at Philips North America.
“When we showed the concept here – and you know, it’s a slightly older community – they were like, this is amazing,” he said.
He said they gathered input about every aspect of the telehealth experience – the “end-to-end journey” – from making the initial appointment to ensuring patient privacy at every step of the process.
“People want to have acoustic privacy; they don’t want to have their medical conversations overheard. They want visual privacy, so nobody knows who’s in here and [they won’t] be disturbed during their visits,” Hughes said.
Inside the Atlas pod, hospital-quality chairs sit just across from a screen that is large enough for the doctor to appear life-size and make eye contact with the patient. The doctor is equipped with a camera they can control to zoom closer to the patient. A dermatologist, for example, could observe a skin condition just as well as a doctor in the room.
The pod is equipped with WiFi-enabled medical devices, including blood-pressure cuffs, glucose meters and electronic scales. These are linked to a high-speed internet line that allows the doctor on the other end to see the results in real time.
There are also various lighting settings inside the pod that change the color temperature. One setting is calibrated so doctors can see the patient’s exact skin tone, while another is a blue-tinted “relax” setting designed to calm down nervous patients before the appointment.
Hughes said there is a deliberate purpose behind the engineering of every element of the Atlas. For instance, all the material inside is bacteria-resistant and bleach-cleanable, and the light-blue backdrop behind the patient is optimized for doctors to look at a patient’s skin.
William “Doc” Schmitz, the National Commander-in-Chief of the VFW, is optimistic about the possibilities of the Atlas technology.
“This is something out of the future that came to now. This is gonna impact the health-care market in general, not including just veterans,” he said.
“My prediction is, the VA is gonna have to hire more people to handle this. Because more people are gonna come forward for more thorough exams and conversations. They will be open to see their doctor more frequently.”
Schmitz said the technology will take away veterans’ excuses for not seeing their doctor or getting check-ups on pressing health matters, no matter where in the country they are. He explained he could even request to see a doctor while he is traveling, if he can access a VFW post equipped with Atlas technology.
He said the technology can serve densely populated, urban areas where the demand can make it difficult to see a doctor at a VA medical center or clinic.
“You’ve got that many people, how the hell is the VA gonna see everybody?” Schmitz asked. “Our waiting room will only hold so many people ... So you might be seeing a dermatologist in Chicago, and you’re in New York City.
“So this is applicable to even overcrowded areas with a facility that can’t even handle the volume,” he said.
The VA hopes to install two more prototypes by the end of the year, in Linesville, Pennsylvania, and Los Banos, California. The project coordinators hope to get enough feedback from the pilot Atlas locations to move on to deploying the pods at a larger scale.
Reporter Colin Gaiser may be reached at 758-4459 or cgaiser@dailyinterlake.com.