“The Veterans Affairs Department’s ongoing, strategic experimentation with 5G is set to extend beyond the Palo Alto-based hospital where it began 9 months ago—and the agency has already started to consider other medical facilities in its system to deploy the next-generation technology.”
“Dr. Ryan Vega, the executive director of the Veterans Health Administration’s Innovation Ecosystem said Wednesday that a letter of intent was recently signed to begin the expansion of VA’s 5G-enabling efforts.”
“’I think the next decade is going to be incredibly exciting,’ he told Nextgov during a webcast.”
“Vega offered some details about plans for the future sites, which VA confirmed will include a VA facility in Lake Nona, Florida, another in Seattle, and a further campuswide expansion of the initial work in Palo Alto, to start. Through an initiative deemed Project Convergence, that location—VA’s Palo Alto Healthcare System—became its first 5G-boosted hospital, and one of the first on the planet, in February, the last month of pre-pandemic normalcy in America.”
“’The world looks very different from when we made the first announcement,’ Vega reflected.”
“At the time, the agency launched partnerships that he noted were somewhat “unconventional” for the government, to ultimately advance what Vega called ‘the practicality of innovations and solutions around and leveraging a 5G network.’ VA linked up with three companies—Verizon, Microsoft and Medivis—hoping to reach short term gains exploring the technology, but with sights ultimately set on potentially establishing an infrastructure to use and scale 5G applications to drive forward veteran care.”
“5G holds the promise of high speed, low latency internet connections that agency officials believe could radically revolutionize how VA provides care…” Read the full article here.
Source: VA Moves to Expand Its 5G Experimentation – By Brandi Vincent, November 20, 2020. Nextgov.
