VA explores AI tools' potential to hone operations, health care – USA Today

As chief technology officer and chief artificial intelligence officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Charles Worthington is helping to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to elevate the level of care. “I have never been more excited about the potential for a technology to improve the way VA works for veterans,” he says.
From health care delivery to back-end operations, VA is looking to AI to meet its mission more efficiently and effectively. “We have over 227 use cases in our inventory. Over 100 of them are in an operational phase, and the number of ways we’re using AI is growing even more,” Worthington says.
Experts in the field of veteran care share Worthington’s enthusiasm. “As these tools get more and more ingrained in the health care systems, we’ll see more and more truly wonderful accomplishments,” predicts Mary Russell, senior director, clinical services at CliniComp, a provider of mission-critical health IT solutions for the VA and Department of Defense.
How is VA already bringing to life the promise of AI?
Some of the earliest use cases are in health care delivery. “We’re using a lot of AI to help with screening or identifying risks. There’s a really cool medical device, for example, that’s helping our doctors identify potentially concerning polyps in colonoscopies. We saw that improved detection rates by 20 percent — and that’s just one example,” Worthington says.
“There are a lot of similar examples, where the AI is helping the clinician identify potentially concerning things at a rate that they wouldn’t be able to just on their own,” he says.
On the back end, VA is ramping up AI uses that ease the burden on workers. “For example, we now have a generative AI tool, sort of like ChatGPT, that’s available for all VA employees,” he says. “We’ve had over 100,000 employees use that tool, and 80 percent are reporting an increased job efficiency.”
In a recent survey, VA employees report “saving an average of two hours per week using this tool to help with basic tasks like summarizing long and complicated documents or doing research,” Worthington says. “These (are) tools that help them be more productive and use their time on the things that can really help veterans.”
The private sector is working in support of these efforts.
Technology provider ReflexAI, for example, helps VA to leverage AI for training first responders and veterans. “Through the VA’s Mission Daybreak initiative, we developed AI simulations for Veterans Crisis Line responders,” says cofounder and Chief Product & Technology Officer John Callery-Coyne.
These simulations enable trainees to practice responding to complex crisis scenarios in a safe, repeatable environment. “Unlike traditional role plays, which are resource-intensive and emotionally taxing, these simulations provide unlimited opportunities for practice, along with instant feedback,” Callery-Coyne says. This helps responders “strengthen communication, empathy, and intervention skills.”
As these early use cases unfold, experts see expanding potential for AI to make a profound difference in VA’s ability to serve the veteran population.
At OSF HealthCare in Alton, Illinois, clinical psychologist Dr. Ari S. Lakritz points to AI’s ability to spot trends or warning signals hidden in massive amounts of data. “If there’s a statement implying some type of self-harm on social media or in one of these fill-in-the-blanks sections of a survey — they make some sort of vague statement of suicidal or homicidal threat — the AI could quickly and accurately identify that,” he says.
Others envision AI helping to make care more readily accessible. As a U.S Army veteran, “I can tell you that applying for benefits was one of the most complicated and stressful tasks of separating from service,” says Marcus Forman, a consultant at technology consultancy Slalom.
“I was lucky. My service was recent, well-documented and fairly straightforward. But for many, especially older veterans with more complex service histories, the wait is far longer and more arduous,” he says, adding that AI could potentially ease that burden by evaluating and processing claims and streamlining administrative processes to connect veterans to care faster.
At CliniCom, Russell says the unique nature of veteran records lends itself to a potential AI assist. A retired Navy Nurse Corps officer, she noted that veterans have two sets of records. In addition to medical records, “we have our service records that have all of our geographical deployment history and our addresses of where we lived.”
“One of the great uses of these AI tools would be to take the veteran service records and map out their military service history, and then identify related vulnerabilities,” Russell says. Based on that service record, “They could then use AI to provide early interventions as needed.”
With new use cases emerging constantly, Worthington says VA is exploring a range of possibilities.
“We’re about to do a pilot of a product called Ambient Scribe,” he says. “It can basically listen to the clinician talking with the patient and then help create a medical note that summarizes all of the really important information that’s covered in that setting. It helps reduce the amount of time that a clinician has to do transcribing and really lets them focus on the patient.”
As to ways in which AI can improve access to VA benefits, “We’re exploring those right now,” Worthington says. “When you call a contact center, for example, or you chat with our virtual agent on the website, we’re looking at ways for AI to make those experiences work even better.”
In the big picture, he says, AI already is changing the way VA meets missions. “It’s helping us provide a higher level of care and service. We’re identifying serious health risks earlier, we’re increasing detections of cancers, we’re even using it to support suicide prevention.”
For the clinicians, it’s making workflows more efficient “so that they can spend their time on the things that only they can do,” Worthington says. “It’s giving them the opportunity to work at the top of their expertise.”
All this ultimately benefits the veterans.
“They want VA spending its time on the things that help them. Anything that can reduce paperwork or other things that are not directly adding value — that’s a positive,” he says.

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