VA, Defense step up efforts to share resources

Officials from the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments met Monday morning to discuss how to maximize the two agencies' resources. At the inaugural meeting of the Defense-VA Joint Executive Council, made up of members of the VA-Defense Executive Health Council and the VA-Defense Executive Benefits Council, members focused on ways to improve inter-agency coordination in such areas as standardized billing, joint procurement, computer-based record systems and capital assets management. "We looked at some hard-hitting kinds of issues," said VA Deputy Secretary Leo Mackay, who serves as co-chair of the joint council along with Undersecretary of Defense David Chu. "Chu and I have found there is ample cooperation between the two departments, but sometimes it may be a barter exchange rather than sharing budgets," Mackay said. The two agencies took advantage of that bartering relationship Friday when the VA and the Navy signed a memorandum of understanding to transfer 48 acres of VA land to the Navy for use as a boot camp in Great Lakes, Ill. In exchange, the Navy will get its electricity from a VA-sponsored energy center. "The agreement reaffirms our commitment to work with the [Navy] and [Defense] to look for additional ways to maximize our resources in order to effectively serve both our nation's veterans and our active duty personnel," Mackay said. In the future, Mackay and the council envision more coordination in the areas of capital improvement and capital assets similar to the agreement on the Great Lakes camp. For example, instead of VA building a hospital and Defense building a medical center, the council hopes to "put together our capital investment plans, sit down and figure out where we propose to make investments and try to coordinate so that we don't overlap," Mackay said. On Monday the joint council reviewed the two agencies' progress in implementing a standardized billing and reimbursement rate for VA healthcare services, an issue Mackay described as one of the largest impediments to sharing services. "When you decide you want to exchange services or send people to VA for services, how much do we reimburse VA, what's the cost of the services?" said Mackay. "A standardized schedule would put a price on [each service] so everybody would know." The two agencies are also looking at ways to make joint purchasing decisions for pharmaceuticals and big-ticket surgical equipment items such as scanners and MRI machines. Eventually, they hope to share computer patient records. Once the "President's Task Force to Improve Health Care Delivery for Our Nation's Veterans" makes its recommendations, further coordination among VA and Defense is likely, Mackay said. The task force, which includes health care experts, Veterans Affairs and Defense Department health care system officials, and representatives of veterans and military organizations, is charged with improving benefits and services for veterans and with promoting coordination between Defense and the VA. President Bush created the task force by executive order last May.