VA’s Post-Pandemic Plan: Expand Health Care Services at Walmarts – By Steve Beynon (Stars and Stripes) / July 13 2020
WASHINGTON — Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie said the agency’s telehealth services at Walmarts will expand in parts of the country with limited access to the agency’s hospitals, calling the move the “wave of the future.”
Wilkie said the agency’s plan to have a larger footprint in areas where it is more difficult to get to a hospital will kick off after the coronavirus pandemic starts to wind down. Since VA and Walmart announced their private-public partnership last year, five telehealth centers have been opened in stores in mostly rural parts of the country and at Veterans of Foreign Wars sites.
“When the [pandemic] winds down, it’s Walmart’s intent to start moving more of these facilities,” Wilkie said in a recent call with reporters. “Walmart has plans to move more rapidly once this [pandemic] is over.”
Wilkie did not say how many new sites are planned.
Continue to article: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/07/13/vas-post-pandemic-plan-expand-health-care-services-walmarts.html
