New clinic in southeast San Antonio

What began as a humid and cloudy day gave way to a lively and joyful ceremony. Veterans and local dignitaries joined South Texas VA leadership to officially open the Southeast VA Outpatient Clinic.

Offering a number of health care services including annual health exams, laboratory services, mental health, telehealth and more, the clinic is ready to serve more than 2,000 Veterans in the southeast Texas community.

Representing the City of San Antonio’s District 3, Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran shared her enthusiasm for a new clinic that will serve Veterans within her district. “I want to ensure that Veterans are getting high quality, comprehensive health care that they deserve and have earned.”

Dr. Julianne Flynn, South Texas VA’s executive director, was appreciative of all in attendance and celebrating with her as South Texas is one of the fastest growing health care systems in the nation.

Ensuring Veterans receive best health care possible

“We look forward to ensuring that Veterans receive the best health care possible,” Flynn said. “Veterans are at the center of everything we do. Whenever we make a decision at VA, we ask ourselves one question above all else: What does it mean for the Veterans we serve and for their families, caregivers and survivors? They have earned and deserve our very best and we will never settle for anything less.”

Participants were able to explore the new clinic that will offer three Patient Aligned Care Teams who are experienced and ready to create personalized care to meet their Veterans’ needs and health care goals.

“We’re really proud of the care that we deliver. We offer wrap around services for Veterans and we want to have a lifelong relationship with Veterans as their preferred health care provider,” Flynn said. “We want to be located convenient to where the Veterans are. We’re looking at growth patterns in the area and planning for sites of care based on where the growth will be happening in the next 10 years.”

Excited about the growth of telehealth

Viagran added: “My father was wheelchair bound and I’m very excited about the growth and integration of communication and telehealth medicine. If we can get our Veterans from all ages connected to telehealth, I think we can see a lot of preventative medicine done.”

Care provided throughout South Texas is safer, more coordinated, has less redundancy, and the communication throughout the multidisciplinary teams is top notch, Flynn noted. “I’m a Veteran and when I was active duty, I didn’t know anything about VA. It was totally unknown to me. Now that I work in the system, I try to make it better each day. I would encourage folks who have not enrolled to come check us out.”

For more information about South Texas Veterans Health Care System, visit www.va.gov/south-texas-health-care.