The Office of Connected Care’s National TeleEye Care Co-Lead, April Yauguang Maa, M.D, was recently recognized with an American Telehealth Association (ATA) Leadership Award. She accepted her award at ATA’s 30th Anniversary Gala and Annual Awards Dinner.

The ATA Leadership Award recognizes a chair or co-chair of an ATA Special Interest Group (SIG) who has provided exemplary contributions to advancing the group’s goals and demonstrating thought leadership in the individual’s area of expertise. Dr. Maa is the outgoing ATA Ocular SIG Chair (2021-2023) and previously served as Vice Chair (2019-2021).

At VA, Dr. Maa’s extensive research on tele-retinal screenings led to the development of the Technology-based Eye Care Services (TECS) program to provide Veterans with virtual access to eye care. She is currently the TECS National Program Office Lead for the VA Office of Rural Health. As Connected Care’s TeleEye co-lead, she provides clinical expertise on a wide variety of VA policy, training, quality, and organizational logistics specific to TeleEye Care.

Dr. Maa is also TeleSpecialty Care Director for the VISN 7 Clinical Resource Hub (CRH) and VISN 7’s Ophthalmology Consultant. She manages the administration of multiple telehealth programs and serves on VA’s national Ophthalmology Field Advisory Board.