The VA hospital system seems to be in disrepair and in a serious need of change. Since the VA system is a government entity change is seemingly nonexistent and very slow to come. The inflexibility of the VA health system needs to be changed. This change can be accomplished by restructuring the political system within the VA healthcare system. The rigid top down flow of information without horizontal communication leads to disparities within each of the regions that separately operate the VA hospitals and clinics throughout the country. It is my hope that we could model the productive and efficient hospitals that exist within the VA health system, give us a baseline to grade ourselves with, creating a basic platform that could then be emulated and duplicated in other VA hospitals whose performance is sub-par. The current VA health system has been unable to adapt to the influx of veterans that have crowded their halls since returning from the theater of combat. In order to decrease costs and boost the number of patients served I think the VA Health System should team up with medical schools to provide a good level of experience for the medical community in training, while at the same time solving the problem of funding hospitals and alleviating the shortage of staff required to assist veterans with their medical needs. This change will require the restructuring of the technical system that is currently in place within the VA Health System. The VA health system has also suffered from the common disregarding of policy and procedure by doctors and staff at some of the hospitals throughout the country. This has led to an outbreak of legionnaire’s disease, hepatitis cross contamination among patients as well as the spread of HIV amongst patients. As veterans return, surviving the hospitals and lack of care they are exposed to may be just as deadly as the war zone they returned from thousands of miles away. The culture that exists within the VA health care system, which allows for blatant healthcare policy and procedure violation, must be ended. Basic cleanliness and sterilization procedures must be met. This change in the culture of the VA system will require strategic removal of personnel and an administrative focus on policy and procedure. Time constraints have been a constant bane to the success of the VA Hospitals, with waits exceeding a month and often longer. Change is necessary to ensure that the needs of the patient are being met. This can be accomplished by automating the entry process through the implementation of a computer system that can screen potential VA patients and arrange for visits with minimal operator input. I think that merging a patient’s military medical history with their current history will give a doctor a clearer picture of what the needs of the patient are. Since a VA patient must first be approved and enrolled into the system, a computer program could be created to streamline this process. The faster veterans are enrolled the faster they can get queued up and begin the wait, till actual visits. Lastly a change in the system of reward is needed; cases of fiscal misappropriation and undeserved bonuses should be non-existent. VA hospitals should get paid for their performance much the same way that a private hospital does. Since every dollar that the VA uses must be authorized by congress a bill to allow for increased funding of the VA is long past due. The VA budget should reflect the recent influx of returning veterans. Veterans who are not in need of the extensive care that VA hospitals can offer should be allowed to see a doctor that is closer to them and who can see them in a reasonable amount of time. This change will free up valuable time and hospital beds for those most in need of hospital care.
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