Veterans Day Message

In honor of Veterans Day, Philip Dietz, General Manager of Cognosante’s Military and Veteran Health Business Unit, shares his perspective on our commitment to honor Veterans’ service every day of the year through our work, our culture, and our hiring practices.

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Every day, Cognosante supports the principles of passion, commitment, and dedication to the mission. As we observe Veterans Day on November 11^th, we pause to recognize the people who displayed those values every single day in service to our country.

Although we can never fully appreciate the contributions our Veterans have made, we’re proud to play a small part in ensuring our nation lives up to its promise “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.” When Abraham Lincoln spoke these words in 1865, he set the highest standard for what society should do to honor those who served in our Armed Forces, as well as the families who support them. It’s a standard we strive to meet every day.

I am honored to work for a company that demonstrates this commitment to Veterans. Veterans deserve the best services that we, as a nation, can provide and Cognosante’s Military and Veteran Health (MVH) business unit is dedicated to making that vision a reality.

The Veterans health system is one of the largest integrated healthcare networks in the United States, with 1,255 healthcare facilities serving over 9 million enrolled Veterans each year. Our team partners with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as they modernize their systems and infrastructure to improve access to high-quality health services for this important segment of our population. Through our work, we help Veteran beneficiaries see community-based providers faster and manage chronic health conditions. We optimize providers’ access to healthcare information, reduce administrative burden on VA staff, and increase access to needed supplies.

Here are just a few examples of the work we do to support the Veteran community:

• Helping Veterans receive care in their communities: Through the Community Care Referral and Authorization (CCR&A) program, we implemented and maintain the system that allows Veteran beneficiaries to receive care in the community. The CCR&A system is integrated with more than 25 other VA systems and streamlines community care referral and authorization management for more than 60,000 users across 155 VA Medical Centers. As of October 2021, the system had processed over 10 million referrals for more than 3 million Veterans. This solution is an integral component of the VA Community Care information technology architecture.
• Enabling options for care such as telehealth: In the telehealth arena, we are improving healthcare and engaging patients outside traditional in-person healthcare settings. Our telehealth solutions allow Veteran beneficiaries with chronic conditions to be monitored remotely and proactively manage health problems such as congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, sleep apnea, diabetes, hypertension, and COVID-19.
• Helping VA modernize their systems: Enterprise Information Technology is foundational to most modernization initiatives at the VA. We leverage our experience in cloud-based solutions and enterprise IT to support several operational improvements across VA. For example, over the next several years, we will implement a holistic supply chain management program that will increase access to needed medical supplies across the entire VA healthcare system. We are also helping improve the IT infrastructure that supports all VA operations by migrating, operating, and maintaining hundreds of applications from an on-prem environment into the VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC). This includes the migration of the Vista Electronic Medical Record, which is critical to ensuring that providers have the information they need at the point of care.
• Offering career opportunities to Veterans and their spouses: Finally, we are proud to recognize the valued skillsets of Veterans and military spouses through our hiring practices. Across the organization, we strive to create a supportive professional environment where our Veteran employees and military spouses can not only thrive but continue to serve a higher purpose through their work.

Cognosante has been honored to touch the lives of Veterans, their families, healthcare providers, and VA staff daily. We are humbled by our responsibility to make these programs a success and are so proud to go to work each day knowing that our efforts will make an impact. We can’t ask for a more honorable or inspiring mission and look forward to further honoring our nation’s Veterans.

For us, every day is Veterans Day.