A Little History On The U.s. Department Of Veterans Affairs And The Veterans Health Administration

One of the most serious problems facing all veterans today is the lack of proper healthcare. Soldiers, sailors and airmen are leaving active duty without having proper healthcare to cover their physical or mental injuries. The department responsible for veteran’s healthcare is the Department of Veterans Affairs. (VA) According to The department of Veterans Affairs website, “The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is responsible for administering programs of veterans’ benefits for veterans, their families, and survivors. The benefits provided include disability compensation, pension, education, home loans, life insurance, vocational rehabilitation, survivors’ benefits, medical benefits and burial benefits. It is administered by the United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs.” The VA, who was formerly called the Veterans Administration, was established 21 July 1930, to consolidate and coordinate government activities affecting war veterans. The VA encompassed the functions of the former U.S. Veterans ' Bureau, the Bureau of Pensions of the Interior Department and the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. On 25 October 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation creating a new federal Cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs to replace the Veterans Administration effective 15 March 1989 (V.A.)

In the past few years there has been increasing discussion about how to provide adequate care for the increasing number of veterasn who are eligible for care through the Veterans’ healthcare administration (VHA). There are concerns is that the VHA is not providing the level of access, efficiency, and quality of care that veterans expect. Lee & Begley, (2016) suggest access to care for the veteran population may be resulting in poor health outcomes. In response to these concerns, the Veterans ' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act (VACAA) of 2014, also known as the Veterans Choice Act, was created to improve Veterans’ healthcare. The VACAA proposed to do this by expanding the number of options veterans have for receiving healthcare, by providing access for healthcare at non-VA care centers as well as providing for an increase in staffing at VA facilities (U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2016).

The Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) is a public organization that is government provided. The organization funding is produce through taxes. The executive branch of the agency is located in Washington DC and is headed by Secretary of Veteran Affairs. There are Veteran Affairs Offices located in all 50 states, including American Samoa, District of Columbia, Guam, North Marianas Islands, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands. It ranks number two in the United States federal department with over 200,000 employees.

In recent years, the Veterans Benefits Administration has found itself defending against a tsunami of negative public opinion, unrelenting media coverage and has suffered from a contentious relationship with the U.S. Congress. While the administration has made enormous strides in reducing the claims backlog, improving quality and undertaking the largest technological transformation in its history, the agency as a whole has not transformed its leadership practices and has neglected to learn from its failures. This has resulted in an erosion of trust both within the Veteran population and with external stakeholders alike. In order to restore the trust and respect of Veterans and reestablish public trust, the agency must transform itself into a learning organization, practice sound financial stewardship, focus on incremental improvements, act with a sense of urgency and reduce potential exposure to significant media events.

This coaching and execution package will start by teaching the meaning of the principles. The Nine Principles™ of service and organizational excellence instills what everyone within and associated with the medical center believe to be the best experience possible. The first principle is to commit to Excellence. Any type of change within an organization requires buy-in from all staff starting at the top of the executive chain. The second principle is to measure the important things. This would be measurement of what the strategic goals have set in place and allows the medical center to keep up with the progress on a monthly basis rather than quarterly. The third principle is to build a culture around service. In order to increase patient or in this case veteran satisfaction all employees will need to learn the process that has been tested and laid out by the Studer Group®. The process teaches that the process should be the norm and it should become “hardwired into the organization’s process.” This will require the medical center to put in place scripting for how to communicate. The scripting of behaviors, establishment of teams, teaching service recovery, and the development of performance standards will also enable to medical center to perform excellent care. The fourth principle is to create and develop leaders. The Studer Group® places great emphasis on developing leaders. So much so that they will provide instructional training to the

The acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs (SECVA) is currently Peter O'Rourke. Mr. O'Rourke serves as the interim SECVA following the departure of David Shulkin in early 2018. David Shulkin left the VA amidst an ethics violation, which will be expanded upon in the Leadership Challenges and Issues section. The Veterans Benefits Administration and its subordinate offices provide benefits and associated services to veterans or their surviving family members (Veterans Affairs, 2018). The Veterans Health Administration and its subordinate offices provide health care for the nation's veterans (Veterans Affairs, 2018). The National Cemetary Administration and its subordinate offices provide burial and memorial benefits and cemetery management to the nation's veterans (Veterans Affairs, 2018). This paper will focus mainly on the VA secretary's office and the Veterans Health

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a government-run military veteran benefit system that provides essential financial and medical assistance to veterans and their families that are located all over the world. (www.va.gov) As the country and the military’s needs change, the VA needs to continue to evolve and grow. With this thought in mind, it is necessary to understand how the department is coping with the many different challenges that they are currently facing to effectively address the current issues and policy pitfalls. The most critical issues presently facing the VA, is the concern over long increasing wait-times and backlogs for services, which have emerged since 9/11 and are primarily the result of the growing

All elements in this domain scored a five. The VHA focuses on diversity and disparities among Veterans. The comprehensive electronic health record captures demographic information, such as race, ethnicity, language on the initial visit to the facility. This information can then be viewed in the first pane of the patient chart. Although English is the primary language, an interpreter can be made available if necessary. Those patients who are hearing impaired are provided with an interpreter fluent in sign language. Multiple programs are available to Veterans who are underserved. A series of questions are reviewed with the patient annually, with the goal of identifying the Veteran’s needs. These questions focus on routine health care, as well

No military in the history of the world has been more widely deployed than the United States. The United States currently has troops stationed in 150 countries, and each year thousands of American citizens are sent abroad for active duty. However, the mental health of veterans are not taken into consideration when they return home. Many have been exposed to prolonged periods of combat-related stress or traumatic events that can lead to severe disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and traumatic brain injury (TBI)—which can plague veterans for the rest of their lives. Groups such as the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America are advocating for change due to the high suicide rates of veterans who are not receiving adequate help for their conditions. It is estimated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that 22 veterans commit suicide every day after a long struggle with the physical and mental tolls of war. However, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been insufficiently handling with the current numbers of veterans with mental health conditions— which is a key element of this issue. To deal with this problem, President Obama signed a bill this past March to allow greater access of mental health care for veterans. The bill is aimed at suicide prevention by simplifying the health care process, as well as by collaborating with nonprofit mental health organizations to effectively reach the public. Psychiatry students are also

According to a report by CNN in 2016, 307,000 veterans may have died waiting for healthcare from the VA (Devine). Considering that this might not be an outstanding number, it is still a major issue, and presents one of the more prevalent concerns with the VA today. Wait times are one of the most common complaints with the organization, and according to The New American, “The VA has been caught having large-scale problems with unsanitary conditions (spreading diseases), poor care, long waits, corruption (including bribes and kickbacks), enormous waste, inefficiency, falsifying wait lists, denial of services, unnecessary surgeries, and more” (Williamsen). Additionally, one VA audit found that 10% of veterans attempting to obtain medical care at a VA or VHA institution were forced to wait at least 30 days to get an appointment (“The US Veteran Health Care System Is Overwhelmed and Failing”). With a larger budget, the VHA could hire more medical employees to care for their numerous patients, and build more facilities across the country, giving them more space and increasing their capability to aid all veterans who require their services.

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs overseas various Organizations that assist those who have served in the United States of America’s armed forces, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is one of them. Health care is a necessity that is not cheap for Americans. Most veterans qualify for this type of health care, which is a benefit well earned after serving their country. The process can be a lengthy and drawn out for several reasons. Healthcare after all is a business, and in every business organizations there are controversies. Often healthcare is associated with good ethical practices however, that is not always the case. For the past few months there has been a spotlight placed on the VHA, however, this is not the

Everyone should keep the promise by hugging them, shake their hands, and most importantly say ‘Thank You’ because they had risked their lives for their families, friends and even the whole United States just to protect everyone.

Unfortunately, the healthcare system provided is full of corruption. In different VA hospital and care facilities across America there have been discoveries of unjust treatment and poor judgement calls that have affected many veterans. “ In 2013, a whistleblower revealed chronic understaffing and life threatening medical mistakes at a Mississippi VA hospital”(Leighton 4). This is just one of many different examples of the veterans affairs hospitals being unreliable. “I 2007 the Army general in charge of Walter Reed Medical Center was fired after the Washington Post revealed poor living conditions and excessive red tape at the facility”(Leighton 4). It is appalling that it has become so corrupt among the VA health care system that whistleblower have to be placed and hospital have to be shut down because of the lack of regard for care and the selfishness of the people who write the checks. In one of the above quotes it said that understaffing and possibly fatal medical mistake had occurred in the VA hospital. Why is it that the hospital was understaffed? The reason is, because the greedy people in charge are more concerned with how much they make a year rather than making sure that veterans get the care they deserve. The problem is not that the VA does not get enough money, “They pointed to the cost of veterans’ care, which they revised up from $717 billion to $943 billion- nearly $1 trillion in health and disability costs alone”(Vlahos 41), the problem is that they do not use it to help the veterans. About fifty-three veterans die each day waiting for their VA benefits to kick in while the VA is dealing with a huge backlog of claims that has amounted to about 900,000 reported (Walsh 1). The VA is putting off care for veterans to the point that many of them die each day, which causes the VA to have to pay claims to families of the

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) FY 2014-2020 Strategic Plan, outlined the strategic goal to “Manage and improve VA operations to deliver seamless and integrated support” and established the objective to “Enhance Productivity and Improve the Efficiency of the Provision of Veterans Benefits and Services.” The MyVA Plan outlines the need to “Modernize VA’s culture, processes, and capabilities that put the needs, expectations and interests of Veterans and their families first.” To this end, the Veterans Benefits Administration must view operations through this lens and determine how to achieve this noble vision.

The importance of human resources to the delivery of healthcare has kept growing over time and HR has become intrinsically important to the delivery of efficient and effective health care. At this point the organizations which have managed their human capital successfully and effectively have been able to serve their patients effectively(Kabene et al, 2006). In a scenario where the health care sector is faced with major human resource related issues the HR has a major opportunity to become a