Dive Brief:
- The Veterans Health Administration has come together with Kaiser Permanente in an effort designed to improve care for both their own patients and the U.S.
- The two will conduct joint efforts to improve the state of care in four areas; connected health and virtual care; genomics; care of patients who are both veterans and Kaiser Permanente members; and advanced analytics to find innovative uses for large data sets and populations.
- The effects of this program could be widespread. Together, the two groups care for nearly 18 million Americans.
Dive Insight:
A project bringing together the vast resources of the VA and Kaiser has a lot of potential. Just the research they plan to publish along the way toward their larger goals should be quite valuable, especially in the areas listed above, as at least three of those specialty areas are still at an early stage and deserve more attention. Of course, when two such large organizations attempt to work together, bureaucracy could stand in the way of success. Let's hope the two figure out how to pare down their focus enough that the work can be done.