In rural Montana, a Veteran needed a specialty consult, but a specialist wasn\u2019t present at their VA Community Living Center (CLC). So, nursing staff used the VA Video Connect app to make that crucial connection with a VA provider nearly 700 miles away.<\/p>\n
At CLCs, Veterans receive nursing home care. Centers in rural areas depend on VA telehealth services such as VA Video Connect to ensure Veterans receive proper specialized care without traveling.<\/p>\n
\u201cTelehealth and VA Video Connect made all the difference in this Veteran receiving timely and efficient care,\u201d said Lindsay Drayer, speech-language pathologist who conducted the Veteran\u2019s assessment.<\/p>\n
When Veterans are admitted into CLCs, the nursing staff does a swallowing screen to ensure the Veteran can safely consume regular meals. Trouble swallowing can also increase the risk for respiratory infections. If there are any concerns, the care team consults a speech-language pathologist to further assess the Veteran\u2019s ability to swallow.<\/p>\n
One evening in November during the nursing screen, staff at the Miles City VA<\/a> CLC in Montana identified that a Veteran was having trouble swallowing. There were no speech-language pathologists available on-site to perform the consultation. As a precaution, they placed the Veteran on a modified diet until they could complete further consultation.<\/p>\n Taja Herzog, clinical care coordinator, reached out to Lindsay Dickinson, section chief of Audiology and Speech Pathology Service at Montana VA<\/a> in Fort Harrison, 350 miles away. That decision set into motion a plan of action that would span the length of the country over the next 24 hours.<\/p>\nSpecialized care through VA Video Connect<\/h2>\n
![<\/a>\u201cThey had VA Video Connect, they knew how to use it and the connection was there.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nOne evening in November during the nursing screen, staff at the Miles City VA<\/a> CLC in Montana identified that a Veteran was having trouble swallowing. There were no speech-language pathologists available on-site to perform the consultation. As a precaution, they placed the Veteran on a modified diet until they could complete further consultation.<\/p>\nTaja Herzog, clinical care coordinator, reached out to Lindsay Dickinson, section chief of Audiology and Speech Pathology Service at Montana VA<\/a> in Fort Harrison, 350 miles away. That decision set into motion a plan of action that would span the length of the country over the next 24 hours.<\/p>\nSpecialized care through VA Video Connect<\/h2>\nBecause speech-language pathologists are in short supply in the area, Dickinson had previously worked to establish an interfacility consult with the Speech-Language Pathology team at Western Colorado VA<\/a>. She contacted this team to help the Veteran in Miles City.<\/p>\n\u201cWhen Lindsay Dickinson reached out, I was at a national speech pathology conference in Boston,\u201d said Tasha Smith, lead speech-language pathologist at Western Colorado VA in Grand Junction, Colorado.<\/p>\nSmith stepped out of the conference and assisted in coordinating care to ensure this Veteran\u2019s consult was conducted swiftly. From the streets of Boston to the plains of Montana down to the mountains of western Colorado, VA providers worked together to approve and conduct the Veteran\u2019s assessment through VA Video Connect, all within the 48-hour standard-of-care deadline.<\/p>\n\u201cThat\u2019s how we were able to get this up and going so quickly,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThey already had the VA Video Connect device, they already knew how to use it and the connection was there. We were able to plug in seamlessly.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cWe did what we needed to do to provide the best patient care possible.\u201d<\/h2>\nBack in Miles City, nurse manager Ashley Hubbell knew where to go from here. \u201cWe have utilized VA Video Connect for a little over a year for Veteran\u2019s screenings, for mental health, for urology and for podiatry. Veterans don\u2019t have to travel two hours to see those specialists. We\u2019re able to do it right here in the CLC. We\u2019ve really grabbed telehealth by the horns,\u201d Hubebell added.<\/p>\nThrough VA Video Connect, speech-language pathologist Drayer conducted the assessment from Grand Junction. After she evaluated the Veteran, she was able to progress them to a regular diet.<\/p>\n\u201cEverybody took ownership,\u201d Lindsay Dickinson said. \u201cWe moved quickly, worked collaboratively and did what we needed to do to make sure we provided the best patient care possible.\u201d<\/p>\nTo learn more about what VA Video Connect can do for Veterans and VA providers, visit the VA App Store<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In rural Montana, a Veteran needed a specialty consult, but a specialist wasn\u2019t present at their VA Community Living Center (CLC). So, nursing staff used the VA Video Connect app to make that crucial connection with a VA provider nearly 700 miles away. At CLCs, Veterans receive nursing home care. Centers in rural areas depend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":133787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,450],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-telehealth","category-va-video-connect"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=133785"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133791,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133785\/revisions\/133791"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/133787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=133785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=133785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=133785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Checking-neck-iStock-955808530_r1-2.jpg\"){kind=link}