VA Awards Grants To Expand Health Services for Female Veterans

January 31, 2013 — The Department of Veterans Affairs recently announced 33 grants to VA medical facilities for various women's health projects, including telehealth programs in rural areas, improvements to emergency services and provider education programs, FierceHealthIT reports. The grants are funded by the administration's Women's Health Program Office, the Office of Rural Health and the Office of Healthcare Transformation (Gold, FierceHealthIT, 1/29).

According to VA, the telehealth programs will provide care related to gynecology, mental health, pharmacy services and telephone-based maternity-care coordination (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 1/28)."

In addition, the grants will be allocated to expand training programs for nurses and VA providers on topics such as gynecology, obstetrical emergencies and military sexual trauma. Funds also will be used to upgrade services for women in VA facilities, including the acquisition of gender-specific equipment and supplies and updated protocol development (FierceHealthIT, 1/29)."

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki in a statement said, "Our goal is 100% accessibility for women veterans who need our care," adding, "These new projects will improve access and quality of critical health care services for women" (Modern Healthcare, 1/28).