Dr. Saraswathy Battar is a Geriatrician at the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center. In 2016, while she was serving at the Little Rock VA Medical Center, Dr. Battar developed an idea for a methodology to improve the quality of life for Veterans through the reduction or deprescribing of potentially inappropriate medications (PIM). The program, called VIONE (Vital, Important, Optional, Not needed, and Every medication has an indication) was selected as a Promising Practice in the 2016 VHA Shark Tank Competition and was selected as a National Diffusion Practice in 2018. Now, VIONE is active at 133 VA facilities and has discontinued over 1.7 million unique PIM prescription orders for more than 700,000 Veterans. You can read more about VIONE on page 25 of the report.

Opioid overdose mortality is preventable with timely and sufficient administration of naloxone, a safe and effective opioid overdose reversal medication that has recently been approved as an over the-counter formulation. Recognizing the need to prevent overdose among Veterans and understanding that every second counts, Pamela Bellino and Dr. Michael Charness began working to make naloxone rapidly accessible, regardless of location. To achieve this, Bellino worked with VA
police, who were often the ones to find those experiencing an overdose, to ensure naloxone was part of their everyday equipment and taught them how to administer the lifesaving medication. VA Boston HCS’ efforts with Rapid Naloxone  were designated as a VHA Diffusion of Excellence Gold Status Practice comprised of 3 elements: (1) providing Opioid Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution (OEND) to VHA patients at-risk for opioid overdose; (2) equipping VA police with naloxone; and (3) equipping select AED cabinets with naloxone. To date, VA’s OEND program has distributed over 1 million free naloxone prescriptions to over 480,000 Veterans while equipping over 3,500 VA police officers and stocking over 1,000 VA Automated External Defibrillator (AED) cabinets with naloxone, reversing more than 4,300 reported opioid overdoses. Read more on page 27 of the report!

The VA’s Remote Temperature Monitoring of Diabetic Foot Ulcers Initiative is shifting VA’s standard of care for diabetic foot ulcers from reactive to preventative. With more than 2 million Veterans with diabetes under its care, VA is leading the fight to prevent diabetic amputations. In 2017, VA began collaborating with Podimetrics to test a new care model at select VA facilities for at-risk patients using their SmartMatTM, an RTM medical device. Veterans sit and place their bare feet on the mat for just 20 seconds each day from the comfort of their home while it scans to detect temperature variations on the underside of the foot, which can signal pre ulcerations or active ulcerations. The RTM of DFU program was selected as a Promising Practice at the 2020 VHA Shark Tank Competition, which accelerated their journey to provide care to more Veterans. To date, more than 10,000 SmartMats have been distributed to Veterans and the program has been adopted at nearly 100 VA facilities. Read more on page 29 of the report!

Many Veterans require the use of assistive technology (AT) to perform a variety of tasks, from complex movements like driving and playing sports to everyday tasks like using a phone or turning on a light. The goal of AT is to maintain, increase, or improve the functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities. From 3D-printed makeup brush holders that aid in cosmetics application to 3D-printed stylus palm grips that help Veterans write with ease, VHA Office of Advanced Manufacturing's  AT has proven to be lifechanging for many. OAM's rehabilitation engineers realized
that while some devices they created could only be used for a single Veteran, other devices were more generalizable and had universal applications, which led them to the idea for the AT Design Library. This gives more VA facilities with the right 3D-printing capabilities a blueprint for recreating some of the most helpful products for Veterans. OAM has worked with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to host the AT Design Library on the NIH 3D-printing website where anyone can view the available products and their designs. While OAM’s AT Design Library currently features about two dozen items, the team has plans for more products to be included in the future. Read more on page 31 of the report!

VHA Innovators Network (iNET) is offering a six-part virtual workshop experience (one hour per session) open to all VA employees this fall. The Incubator series is hosting its next session on Thursday October 26^th and it’s not too late to register! These impactful classes, aimed at fostering innovation and teaching VA employees new problem-solving skills will cover topics like making time for innovation, understanding human-centered design, and effective storytelling to support projects. This is a great opportunity to expand your knowledge and skillsets. Don’t miss out – join the innovation revolution and empower yourself with the tools to make a real difference. Participants can attend as many of the six available sessions as they’d like, and recordings will be available after each live session. Note: this is only available to VA employees.

In a recent interview with U.S. Medicine, Dr. Thomas Osborne, Director of the National Center for Collaborative Healthcare Innovation, discussed his team's recent publication which evaluated 18 years of data and uncovered concerning trends in heat related illnesses among Veterans. The analysis was the first of it's kind in VA and assessed HRI diagnoses for associations with patient demographic, comorbidities and geographic residence at the time of the heat-related illness diagnosis. 

Listen: VA Uber Pilot Expands to More Hospitals

The VHA-Uber Health Connect Initiative was featured on a recent Healthcast episode. Dr. Indra Sandal, 2021 VHA IE Entrepreneur in Residence Fellow and Chief of Innovation at the James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital in Tampa, FL, is joined by Veterans Transportation Program Director, Ben Williams. Launched last year at an initial 10 sites, the VHA-Uber Health Connect Initiative is now serving 60 VA medical centers in its second phase.