HOUSE COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS NEWS from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 09-28-2005 #2

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P R E S S  R E L E A S E -  September 28, 2005

CHAIRMAN BUYER FIGHTS FOR SEAMLESS TRANSITION OF SERVICEMEMBERS FROM DoD TO VA 

Washington, D.C. — The Committee on Wednesday held its first in a series of anticipated full-committee oversight hearings focused on progress by the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) in the seamless transition of servicemembers from active duty to veteran status.  

“These are soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and members of the Coast Guard; they should never be caught in the bureaucracy,” Chairman Steve Buyer said. 

The hearing focused on the efforts of the senior leadership at both agencies thus far.  Testimony and questions addressed the timely transfer of servicemembers from military hospitals to VA medical centers and the need for their corresponding medical records to be electronically accessible to doctors and healthcare staff.  The hearing also examined the potential need for new equipment and technology that could improve coordination and sharing between the agencies.   

“I am concerned that there is a significant disconnect between what Congress envisions, what VA and DoD policy makers are initiating, and what is actually taking place at all levels of the two Departments,” Buyer said. “Unfortunately, this ‘disconnect’ is coming at a significant cost to our taxpayers, and more importantly, to the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and their families who have unselfishly served and sacrificed for this great nation.”  

The concept of collaboration goes back to a 1982 law, the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense Health Resources Sharing and Emergency Operations Act.  The “Sharing Act” created an interagency committee to supervise and manage sharing between VA and DoD. 

The VA’s health care system has converted to electronic patient records, the only such system-wide conversion in the nation.  Yet, it cannot help transitioning servicemembers until they bring their paper military health records to it.  

Chairman Buyer expressed his frustration that “despite twenty years of Congressional mandates for VA-DoD resource sharing, various name changes, and other administrative actions, the two Departments are still operating in separate worlds. Equally troubling, the two Departments have been working to exchange patient health information electronically for over seven years.” 

The agencies have, problems notwithstanding, made some progress.  For example, the military has assigned full-time liaison officers at four of the VA’s polytrauma centers to help facilitate the transfer of wounded and injured servicemembers from military treatment facilities into the VA system. 

“Indications are that DoD and VA are successfully working out many of the previous problems with seamless transition,” said Ranking Democratic Member Lane Evans. “[T]echnology is not a bar to success, rather it is a matter of exerting the willpower to make this initiative succeed,” he said.  

Medical care in the military environment is different from that experienced in the civilian world: The military patient is rapidly moving through the system, from the combat medic to the aid station, to a combat support hospital, to U.S.-based military hospitals such as Walter Reed, to a VA polytrauma center in a matter of weeks.  That is why seamlessness is extraordinarily important. 

During the hearing, the National Guard Bureau described a program launched independently by the Bureau to improve the transition of separating Guardsmen in New Hampshire.  The Guardsmen get a day with family immediately on returning home, and then go through a three-day outprocessing that features private time with VA healthcare and benefits counselors.  The Guard found that almost 50 percent of the soldiers receiving the benefit of this dedicated process filed VA claims and 2 percent were actually found too sick or hurt to separate and were kept temporarily on active duty to receive military health care.   

“That is leadership,” said Buyer of the Guard’s initiative. 

“The seamless transition issue is going to be a continuous dialogue, on a bipartisan basis in the full committee and with the House Armed Services Committee.  We think it is important,” Buyer said in closing. 

Witness List:

Panel 1

Ms. Cynthia Bascetta, Director, Veterans Health and Benefits Issues
U.S. Government Accountability Office

Ms. Linda Koontz, Director of Information Management Issues
U.S. Government Accountability Office

Jonathan Javitt, M.D., M.P.H. Former Presidential Appointee
President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), Health Care Delivery and Information Technology Subcommittee 

Peter Dysert, M.D., Chief Medical Information Officer
 Baylor University Medical Center

Panel 2

Honorable Gordon H. Mansfield, Deputy Secretary
Department of Veterans Affairs

Below were available from the Department of Veterans Affairs for Questions:

Admiral Daniel L. Cooper, Under Secretary for Benefits

Dr. Michael Kussman, Deputy Under Secretary for Health

Mr. John Brown, Director, Seamless Transition Office

Dr. Barbara Sigford, Chief, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Program Manager
Veterans Health Administration

Ms. Karen Ott, VA/DOD Liaison Office

Dr. Stephen L. Jones, Principal Deputy Assistant in the Office of Health Affairs
Office of Personnel and Readiness
U.S. Department of Defense

Major General Ronald G. Young, Director, National Guard Bureau Joint Staff
National Guard Bureau

Colonel Sheila Hobbs, Senior Patient Administrator, Office of the Surgeon General
United States Army

Ms. Susan McAndrew, Senior Health Information Privacy Policy Specialist, Office of Civil Rights.  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Larry Scott