| Summary: | With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the biggest changes in practice has been to the delivery of care. Telehealth technology has been an important mode to maintain the availability and continuity of care during these times for providers across the health care continuum--from physicians to nurses to therapists--in settings ranging from primary care to specialty care. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) was uniquely adept at applying this change in delivery, as it has long utilized telehealth services to deliver care to Veterans across the country. This enabled the VHA to implement programs that were already in place to quickly provide Veterans with the necessary technology and to deliver care through telehealth. Currently, the VHA offers telehealth services and communication with providers via instant messaging on MyHealtheVet, telephone calls, and videoconferencing on VA Video Connect (VVC). Early in the pandemic, telephone appointments made up a significantly greater share of virtual care, likely due to their being less complex in nature and having fewer barriers to implementation. Implementation barriers for VVC include that both the patient and the provider need camera-enabled devices, access to adequate connectivity for streaming video, and a certain level of comfort navigating a telehealth platform
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