Introduction

Health Care For Homeless Veterans

Florida Assertive Community Treatment

Helping Hands Clinic

Veterans Video Network

Mental Health Intensive Case Management

Crisis Intervention Team

Assisted Living Facilities

National Alliance On Mental Illnesses

Alachua County Survivors Of Suicide and Alachua County Crisis Center

Mental Health Court

Acknowledgements

Computer technology has made its way into many aspects of the healthcare system. Veterans Video Network (VVN) is an excellent example of this phenomenon. VVN is an outpatient mental health care coordination program in the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System. The program began in 2000 as a means to combine care coordination and technology to improve the lives of veterans with chronic mental illness. Coordination services are provided to the patient via computers. These services include assessing the patient, reporting changes, sending reminders about appointments or medications, reinforcing providers’ instructions, offering support and providing education. Patients are able to communicate with care coordinators through email, during on-line groups, by telephone, or directly by visiting the main office.

Many of the patients enrolled in the program have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); others have diagnoses of schizophrenia, depression, substance abuse, and/or personality disorders. Ages range from thirty-two to eighty-two years old. Most of the patients live in private homes or in Assisted Living Facilities.

Currently there are seventy veterans enrolled in the program and there is a total capacity for eighty. Two care coordinators and one computer assistant staff the program. VVN was credited with substantial cost avoidance in bed days of care.

For more information contact: Carol Alderson, RN, ARNP, Program Coordinator 352-271-6684 or Matthew DeWein, MSW, LCSW, Care Coordinator 386-755-3016 ext. 3290.