VA Employees Will Display Their Creative Problem-Solving in Washington

Veterans Affairs Department employees from across the country on Monday will present their ideas for streamlining how the department operates and improving veterans’ experience with government during an all-day event in Washington.

VA is billing the event as an “Innovation Demonstration Day” that provides employees with an opportunity to highlight solutions they devised to improve access to and increase the quality of health care in their facilities. “VA employees are the most equipped to identify potential solutions to help improve access to care, care coordination, quality and safety for the veterans we serve,” said a statement on the upcoming event, which will be held at the Booz Allen Hamilton Innovation Space in downtown Washington and is open to the public. People can also tune into the event via webcast.

The idea is to bring awareness to innovative solutions that have helped one facility, and hopefully replicate that success elsewhere throughout the department.

For example, Kristine Gherardi, a certified pharmacy technician in the VA’s Boston healthcare system, came up with a way to help staff find code medications faster during patient emergencies. Gherardi, who has worked with two other VA facilities to implement her idea, will present during Monday’s event. Lisa Bruce  from Jackson, Miss., developed an electronic monitoring system of clinical supply inventory, so that when patient supplies start to dwindle, the software automatically alerts staff to order more.

More than three dozen “innovation projects” are in the pipeline at the VA, according to the department.

VA Undersecretary for Health Dr. David Shulkin and LaVerne Council, the department’s chief information officer, will be among the leaders appearing at the event.

The VA also could use the day to explore ways to better manage and oversee a range of programs and services, based on just the last few weeks’ worth of inspector general reports and news stories.

House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., sent the VA an Aug. 11 letter asking the department to provide list of its 167 interior designers, their salaries, and a justification for why the VA needs them.

“I question the need for full-time interior designers at individual facilities, especially given VA’s consistent pleas for greater health care funding and when a facility is not constructing a new building or a major renovation,” Miller wrote. “In addition to diverting resources away from medical personnel who directly impact veterans’ care, it would seem that such a large number of interior designers would encourage the elaborately expensive hospital designs that VA has produced in recent years.”

The non-profit group Open the Books along with Cox Media reviewed government data this summer and found that the VA had spent $20 million between 2004 and 2014 on expensive artwork to decorate facilities. Lawmakers and others have criticized the wisdom of that spending by several VA facilities, especially during a time when many veterans were waiting too long for health care.

There also have been several recent unflattering inspector general investigations: The VA has wasted millions on solar panels at various facilities started in fiscal 2010 that are still works-in-progress; the watchdog substantiated a claim that a GS-15 employee, now retired, abused 22 weeks of sick leave so he could start his own business on the side; and the IG also found that the VA spent more than $300,000 on hundreds of TVs that have sat in storage in Detroit for nearly three years because they were the wrong type of television.

One bright spot for the VA this summer? The Joint Commission made surprise visits to 139 VHA facilities and 47 community-based outpatient clinics in 2014 and 2015, and concluded that the Veterans Health Administration has improved the quality of and access to health care for vets.