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VA COULD BE MODEL FOR NATIONAL HEALTH SYSTEM --
The VA has several primary advantages: The
public nature
of VA funding stimulated it to adopt
information technology,
VA can and does negotiate prescription drug
discounts, it
provides long-term care and has managed to
decrease
costs per patient while improving quality.
Story here...
http://www.forbes.com/
business/2007/04/19/veterans-health
-care-biz-cx_0420oxford.html
Story below:
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VA Could Be Model For Health System
Oxford Analytica
The U.S. Veterans Administration oversees a self-contained health care
system--the Veterans Health Administration. During the past decade, the
VHA has transformed itself from a lumbering, poorly performing
bureaucracy to an efficient provider of relatively high-quality medical
services.
In the early 1990s, VA health care was substandard. In response, the VA
undertook three waves of reform to increase quality:
1. 'Culture of Safety.' In 1994, Kenneth Kizer became the VHA's
undersecretary. He implemented a plan that stressed patient safety and
accountability.
2. Surgical quality. Efforts by the VA to improve the quality of
surgical care culminated in the creation of the National Surgical
Quality Improvement Program in 1994. The NSQIP has been so effective at
improving outcomes that many non-VA hospitals are now using it.
3. VistA. In 1996, the VA launched the Veterans Health Information
Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA), a system of integrated
software programs for health care applications.
These reforms led to substantial advances in quality of care,
improvements in outcomes, shorter waiting times for non-urgent care and
lower costs per patient.
If Washington eventually moves toward a national health care system, the
VHA would be a useful model. It has several primary advantages:
--The public nature of VHA funding stimulated it to adopt information
technology such as VistA.
--Unlike Medicare, the VHA can and does negotiate prescription drug
discounts. It also provides long-term care.
--The VHA has managed to decrease costs per patient while improving
quality.
Nonetheless, the VHA still suffers from typical "single payer" system
problems, such as:
--rationing of care;
--restrictions on approved prescription drugs;
--misallocation of funding; and
--bureaucratic red tape.
Although Walter Reed Army Medical Center is an active-duty facility, the
VA also has faced criticism for neglecting new veterans from Iraq and
Afghanistan. The appalling conditions of Building 18 at Walter Reed
revealed last month prompted internal reviews at both the Pentagon and
the VA. The VA review concluded that its facilities are only suffering
from normal "wear and tear" and insisted that shortcomings would be
addressed.
Congress has responded to problems at Walter Reed. On March 29, the
House passed the fiscal 2008 budget resolution, which included $6.6
billion in health care funding to the VA. The bill seeks to:
--improve treatment of mental disorders and post-traumatic stress
disorder;
--hire people to process disability claims more quickly and efficiently;
and
--avoid the enrollment fees and co-pay increases suggested in President
George W. Bush's budget proposal.
On March 28, the House passed the Wounded Warriors Assistance Act, which
will help wounded veterans transition between military health care
received on active duty through the Department of Defense (DoD), and
health care administered to discharged personnel through the VA system.
This transition is notoriously complex, confusing and expensive. The act
includes several reforms:
-- Medical information services. The DoD and the VA will unify their
medical information services across departments, and service members'
electronic records will be transferred from the DoD to the VA before
they leave active duty.
-- Administrators. The VA will hire additional personnel to help service
members navigate administrative difficulties and coordinate treatment.
-- Transition support. Service members discharged due to physical
disability will receive a detailed plan of how to transition to VA
services.
-- Independent advocates. Each service member under consideration at a
medical evaluation board will have an independent medical advocate to
counsel them through the process.
Further legislative action is likely on veterans' health care.
With fresh support from Congress and the White House, the VA should now
have the ability to maintain its facilities. The VA has used remarkably
innovative means to improve its quality of care and control costs; some
of its systems could serve as blueprints for national health care
reform.
Oxford Analytica is an independent strategic-consulting firm drawing on
a network of more than 1,000 scholar experts at Oxford and other leading
universities and research institutions around the world. For more
information, please visit www.oxan.com.
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Larry Scott --
