Rural Promising Practice: Telehealth Collaborative Care for Rural Veterans With HIV Infection

In an effort to increase the accessibility and comprehensiveness of care for rural Veterans with HIV, the VA Office of Rural Health (ORH) funded a pilot telehealth collaborative care program that was developed and tested by the Veterans Rural Health Resource Center-Iowa City. Telehealth collaboration can put fragmented networks of primary and specialty care providers in touch. Clinical video telehealth allows for a more coordination between distant HIV specialists and local primary care teams, making the responsibilities of each explicit. Then, a central nurse care manager helps Veterans navigate the shared-care model. Physicians also create a searchable disease registry to better track and follow up about HIV-related and unrelated health status indicators. This VA program links specialty clinicians in Iowa City with VA Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) that serve Veterans in rural areas.