Leaders across VA address how they are focusing on
efficiency to provide all veterans with their full benefits.
Leaders from the Department of Veterans Affairs’ benefits
and health units are opening up about the technical implications for a few of
its recent expanded focuses in electronic health records and other benefits for
veterans, especially those in underserved communities.
“I want you to know that on our end, we’re doing our utmost...so that together, everywhere, we can tell that person on the other end of
the phone that we haven’t given up on you,” said Dr. Carolyn Clancy, Veteran
Health Administration’s deputy under secretary for Health for the Office of
Discovery, Education and Affiliate Networks, during DAV’s 2021 National
Convention in Tampa, Florida, last weekend.
VA's recent expansions of a few key areas — including the
electronic health record (EHR) program, toxic exposure benefits, claims
processing and health equity — means shifting priorities on the technology
supporting those processes.
Clancy reiterated the agency's focus on an enterprise
structure for its EHR program to ensure a "seamless flow of
information" between VA and the Defense Department, for instance.
“We believe quite strongly that we need to have a unified,
enterprise approach to this,” Clancy said. “We won’t get the most out of this
record and provide the highest quality, highest value care to veterans unless
we are standardizing and making our workflows consistent across the system.”
As for VA's other expanded benefits, the agency is working
on ensuring the technology is in place to support them. That also means
expanded the research and scientific support behind these efforts.
"One of the biggest things that we’re starting to add
to the equation of doing the research that Dr. Clancy’s group has done for
years on presumptives, specifically Agent Orange, is looking at evidence in
different areas and evidence that we have in VBA from years and decades of
claims experience,” said Michael Frueh, principal deputy under secretary for
benefits at Veterans Benefits Administration, at the DAV event. “That is part
of this new framework that, quite honestly, we hadn’t been looking at before.”
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