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Veterans Health Administration Analysis: Organization And Objectives

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Veterans Health Administration Analysis
Nathan R. Dennis
Western Governors University A) Organization and its objectives
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is an executive division of the U.S. federal government responsible for programs and policies to veterans and their families. It was established in 1989 in which it succeeded the Veterans Administration formed in 1930. By the same token, the VA also operates a medical care program that includes nursing homes, clinics, and medical centers. Located in West Palm Beach, Florida, the veteran health administration medical center is a teaching hospital that provides a full range of patient care services, with state of the art technology; as well as, education and limited …show more content…

The network spans a vast 64,153-mile area that is home to 1.6 million veterans. It has eight large VA hospitals and more than 55 clinics in Florida, South Georgia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In 2013, 546,874 Veterans made nearly 8 million visits throughout the VISN 8 facilities. To return to the subject, the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center has a comprehensive healthcare in which it provides through primary care and long-term care in the area of dentistry, extended care, medicine, neurology, oncology, pharmacy, physical medicine, psychiatry, rehabilitation and surgery. Additionally, it also operates a Blind Rehabilitation Center, which is the referral center to blind and visually impaired Veterans from throughout the state of Florida. Its mission is to provide easily accessible, quality, compassionate healthcare for eligible Veterans through services at its main campus and its six community based …show more content…

Florida VA hospitals are among the busiest in the nation. Access can be an issue for non-emergency care, and in some cases, these delays have reportedly resulted in harm to patients. In 2012, West Palm Beach VA Medical Center served 64,358 veterans since they have opened the medical center in 1995 in which it was projected to serve 30,000. Outpatient visits totaled a record of 689,662 and 7,417 inpatient discharges. Since WPB VAMC opening, it has had a 66 percent increase in staffing to help meet the needs of Veterans. During my time at the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center, I have spent seven months assisting in the director’s office as a program support. I helped with patient advocacy issues on as a needed basis and also helped with pulling data collection, tracking, analysis and reporting. In fiscal year 2013, there was an 11% increase in the number of Veterans served by Telehealth. VA Telehealth services use health informatics, disease management and telehealth technologies to target care and case management to improve access to care with the intent to providing the right care in the right place at the right time. Further, as the numbers of veterans served by Telehealth grown so did the amount of complaints to access or timeliness in which there was a 12% increase. For example, in medical administrative services, phone calls were not returned or letters were not

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