EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Leadership is critical to solving complex issues within an organization and without strategic collective leadership, an organization will not be successful in achieve their mission. Many organizations should recognize the volatility in which they are operating and understand that generation, refinement and revising of business processes is the only key to business success (Senugpta, 2006). As a leader it is also important to be able to identify areas of improvement and evaluate progress for the betterment of the overall organization and the group in which they serve. For a while, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has underestimated the demand for health care appointments for our returning service members, veterans and their dependents. Patient wait times have been a long-standing concern at the VA. Although they are working diligently and exhausting every effort to correct their wrong, there are still areas with the health system that are preventing Veterans from receiving timely access to healthcare and this issue needs to be evaluated and brought up-to-date. Closing this gap of healthcare access issues has become a major priority for many government agencies, medical researchers, other VA organizations, and affiliated community groups despite the commitment from Congress and multiple stakeholders. In this study, the researcher will examine barriers from a VA employee’s perspective that have and still prevent the VA from successfully and
On April 10th, 2015, two Detroit police officers in the city’s Narcotics Division were charged with robbing drug dealers during police searches performed over a four-year period. Due to their wide knowledge of narcotics, they were able to make a large profit by reselling the stolen drugs. They sold the drugs through private parties that included underground operations with other drug dealers in the state. The federal indictment was revealed to be eight-counts which included: possession with intent to distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine, robbery, extortion, possession of firearms and drug trafficking (Cook, 2015).
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
a whole. We will then determine surveyors’ perception of veterans’ access to care, knowledge of benefits available to them, equity of care received, and differences in care among veterans in separate socioeconomic and living areas. Also, a Likert-scale will be used to determine the extent of each individual’s belief about how Veteran’s health care is working. Lastly, there is a section for free response that encourages participants to explain their opinions and anything they may have experienced to influence said opinions.
The Mexican lower classes had both benefited, and suffered greatly under the Diaz Presidency from 1876-1910, throughout the Porfiriato middle-class workers and the poor had more disadvantages than advantages that earlier Mexicans did not have under the presidencies of Benito Juarez, and Lerdo. However, The Porfiriato had changed Mexico in a way that was considered miraculous, for all of Mexico’s violent tendencies it had changed its reputation and managed to bring about foreign investment on the massive Mexican lands and make profit out of them that the country itself could not do before, while renouncing the lower classes at the same time.
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
Josh Hicks, author at The Washing Post, says that the Veterans Affairs has an ongoing problem of delays in servicing veterans. “Phoenix VA hospital kept delays off the books with secret wait lists that allegedly included dozens of patients who died while waiting for care” (Hicks 1). “Several patients died at an Atlanta clinic because of mismanagement” (Hicks 1). “A Department clinic in Fort Collins, Colorado, falsified appointment records to give the impression that staff doctors saw patients within the agency’s goal of 14 days” (Hicks 1). In addition to these issues, other veterans waiting to hear if their disability claims had been approved for care were waiting in excess of 125 days without determination. Retired four-star Army General Eric Shinseki, serving
In July 2015, Secretary Robert McDonald introduced the MyVA Integrated Plan (MIP). The MIP focuses on giving Veterans greater control over provided services, modernizing VA by focusing on the organizational culture, processes and capabilities with the intent of providing a seamless, unified Veteran experience across the entire organization and throughout the country. One of the MyVA Initial Priorities is Performance Improvement, which is inextricably tied to the VA Strategic Objective of increasing customer satisfaction through improvements in benefits and services delivery policies, procedures and interfaces. In order to enhance service delivery, improve the employee
Current funding for veteran healthcare care is low and insufficient because of the large number of veterans, who are being discharged from the military as the country transitions to a democratic President. According to Dr. Rachel Nardin in her article about veteran healthcare, “Soldiers get excellent acute care when injured on active duty, but as revelations of poor conditions for soldiers receiving ongoing outpatient care at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center highlighted, service members often have trouble getting the care they need once active duty ends” (Nardin 1)
However, he Veterans for America have taken to a less popular choice. Instead of completely doing away with the VA, the Veterans for America request a change in them instead. The priorities have been sorted in a list of ten that also serve as instructions. First off is the rule that veterans must come first, not the VA. This is the most important rule. They believe that the care and funding of veteran health should be the first priority. The second priority refocuses on veteran service for those with disabilities and specialized needs. The third is the improvement of the VA, or more specifically the improvement of how the VA work-such as dealing with the timing and quality of care. The fourth and fifth priorities deals with the allowing of choice concerning from who and where the veterans receive their health care from. They believe the veteran has a right to choose. Following suit, the sixth, seventh, and eighth priorities again drills upon the Veteran Affairs by suggesting reform on thing such as the possibilities of health care on their budget, veterans’ demographics, and the cycle of their ‘standard operating procedures.’ They also note that the reform of such things will require bipartisan vision, courage, and commitment-to which they state in their ninth priority and how to implement it. The tenth -but by far not the least important-priority is to hold the VA accountable for all
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).
Data released in October 2014 indicated an average wait time of approximately 50 days for new primary care appointments, with a range of 2 to 122 days across all VA/VHA facilities (VA, 2014c). The OIG found that VHA was not meeting the outline standards, forcing some veterans to wait as many as 60 days for an initial evaluation. This caused a great setback in meeting the measurements set forth by OIG and caused a hindrance on veterans who have returned home from war and dealing with physical and mental health aliments and disabilities. The research study will be conducted to examine the circumstances preventing veterans from receiving new patient appointments in a timely matter. Since 2012, this researcher has witnessed the VA make great efforts to implement recommendations from OIG, however, the shortage of (1) healthcare provider availability, staffing, and (2) scheduling practices with out-of-date technology continues to cause delay in effective
According to Kotter (1990), “Leadership seeks to produce organizational change by: developing a vision of the future and strategies for making necessary changes; communicating and explaining the vision, and motivating and inspiring people to attain the vision.”
In today’s competitive world, leadership skills are crucial for both personal and professional development. Leadership is an important function of management which helps an individual or a business to maximize efficiency and to achieve goals. Leadership has different meanings to various authors.Most commonly, leadership is defined as influence, that is, the art of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievement of group goals. (Koontz). Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of either formal or informal group in the task of goal setting and goal achievement. A leader is one whose magnetic personality innervates people for some cause. Not by words, but by their actions is
Throughout the world today, Mysticism plays a vital role in any and all religions as it yields a connection to a higher power through the use of prayer and/or meditation. Though the exact definition of Mysticism is unclear and no amount of words could sufficiently describe all experiences one has made through this act, it can only be fully described as mystical. Throughout the teachings held within this course, the conclusion has been made that Mysticism is essentially the core of all religious practices. Amidst the use of personal experience, religious traditions, and settings – the occurrence of a mystical event is present in all religious activities and is the heart of all things holy.
Leadership is a process of influencing activities of a particular group of people with the aim of attaining certain stipulated goals. In defining leadership there is need to consider a particular group, the common goals and the duties that are allocated to specific members of the group depending on their abilities (Fiedler 1976). Leadership therefore cannot successfully occur unless members of the group are given different considerations in terms of personality, traits and responsibilities. In considering leadership, it is important to look at the leader, the group or organization they are leading, the members as individuals and the situation; these are