How VA Can Use Technology Advances to Meet Veteran Health Needs

It is an exciting time at VA with a concerted focus on accelerating innovation. The overarching goal is turning the immense amounts of data available inside the VA’s system into operational insights across all departments. It is a complex challenge, but not an unrealistic endeavor.

The key is bringing in data science experts and thought leaders to partner with VA to help evolve how VA utilizes capabilities such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Through the lens of AI and ML, VA’s data can be filtered to empower stakeholders from providers in the exam room to leaders at the highest levels make critical clinical and business decisions. Through these types of innovations, we are putting a story together for each patient, in each market with a keen eye on the workflow of the end-user. We must remain cognizant that the right person has the right information at the right time regardless of where they sit in the organization.

Most Veterans receive care both inside and outside of VA. There is a lot of attention placed on data representing these care interactions in the medical record, but which may only represent a few 20–30-minute appointments per year. A Veteran’s interactions with the healthcare system are a small fraction of time compared with the 99.9% of their lives where they are interacting with their communities in which they work and live every day. Innovations in how we integrate data representing social determinants of health from where Veterans work and live with VA’s vast dataset in a way that efficiently informs decision-making from the exam room to the enterprise VA level has the ability to revolutionize how we fund and deliver care across the country.

An example of this approach, Mission Daybreak, addresses the troubling and complex problem of the suicide rate among Veterans. Approximately 17 Veteran suicides a day leave clinicians asking, “What have we missed?” Mission Daybreak invites a broad spectrum of organizations including health innovators, service members, clinicians, and advocates to collaborate on solutions aimed at curbing suicide.

Mission Daybreak is indicative of this shift to looking to open source and publicly available social determinants of health data for geographic and community conditions that can increase a Veteran’s risk for suicide and other health conditions. Adding geographically specific information about opioid use, food insecurity, employment opportunities and overall sentiment can offer clues about the possible mental state of a Veteran residing in that community. Through integration and AI, these social determinants become part of a patient’s profile and a factor in clinical decision-making.

Bridging Data Gaps for a Better Future

Making connections in communities through partnerships with public sector and commercial organizations offers unique insights into geographic indicators. Everyone is interested in how VA is going to seamlessly integrate this non-traditional data on such a massive scale. One can liken this influx of data to a Driver Assist program in an automobile. Using AI, the car interprets both internal and external conditions and makes recommendations about things like changing lanes or following too closely. The same can be said for healthcare. We want to use all the existing data both inside the facility and outside its walls to not only inform clinical decisions but also assist end-users at all levels to best operationalize currently available, and future data.

Just as a car’s navigation can see what is ahead, so too can we see what is on the horizon for Veterans and patients alike. Innovation is pointed in the right direction with the goal of meeting patients as they live their lives in communities. We offer them the resilience to meet challenges whether they are transitioning out of the military or are seasoned Veterans. We do this by ensuring that there is no data wall, but rather an open flow of support and information to keep Veterans healthy and thriving.

We see that the key to Veteran vitality lies in partnerships among commercial, public, and federal organizations with the shared goal of informing pathways and improving lives.