Veterans Affairs, Health Gorilla alliance may benefit 150K vets in Puerto Rico/USVI
Health Gorilla, a provider of health data in the United States, and the US Department of Veteran Affairs announced a public-private partnership that will supply all eligible veterans and their physicians access to complete healthcare records, allowing all parties to make more informed and timely decisions.
The Veteran Affairs Caribbean Healthcare System provides services to a population of 150,000 veterans in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In Fiscal 2008, the VA Caribbean Healthcare System registered 66,955 unique patients with 11,428 in-patients treated and provided 927,072 outpatient visits at all clinic areas in Puerto Rico and the USVI, Health Gorilla officials confirmed.
In addition to the Veterans Affairs main facility in San Juan, the agency offers services in two multispecialty clinics and four community-based outpatient clinics in Arecibo, Mayagüez, Guayama, Ponce, Utuado, Ceiba, Comerío, Vieques, St. Croix, and St. Thomas.
The partnership will leverage Health Gorilla’s Patient360 API and interoperability platform alongside the VA’s Lighthouse initiative to “supply veterans and their healthcare providers with a holistic view of health records allowing them to quickly and accurately diagnose problems and recommend treatments,” the firms stated.
“Once a veteran has authorized access to their health information using a VA-approved authentication method they will be able to retrieve their electronic health records at any time through Health Gorilla’s national network which currently encompasses 92% of all healthcare organizations in the United States,” Health Gorilla stated.
“They will also be able to revoke the privileges they’ve granted the application at any time through their account settings on VA.gov,” it added in a statement.
Veterans having access to their electronic health records will give them an opportunity to improve their understanding of their health conditions and treatment plans, while also improving communication between them and their physicians.
“This partnership is another example of the Department of Veteran Affairs continuing to leverage innovative technology to implement top of the line healthcare interoperability for our nation’s veterans and their care teams,” said Steve Yaskin, CEO of Health Gorilla.
Health Gorilla has gone through rigorous security certifications from government agencies and other leading healthcare organizations and is SOC-2 Type 2 compliant, HIPAA-certified, and is independently audited on a routine basis.
Patient360 powers a diverse set of use cases including telemedicine, remote patient monitoring, and care coordination services, all of which will support the VA’s ability to care for our nation’s veterans.
The Office of Veteran Affairs, and specifically the VA Lighthouse API Platform, focuses on providing developers secure access to the VA data they need to build helpful tools and services for veterans.
Their APls provides approved individuals and organizations access to the VA clinical database to give veterans flexibility in where they seek care, Health Gorilla explained.