Va Medical Center Recovery Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, this legislation, H.R. 3234, as amended, is designed to establish criteria for the evaluation and improvement of VA medical centers. The bill requires the VA to create key health metrics to measure whether each medical center is satisfactory or underperforming.

The metrics will be published on the VA Web site, and an underperforming medical center will be subject to a rapid deployment team being sent to the facility to create a remediation plan and bring them up to standards. The VA will issue quarterly reports on the underperforming facilities and their progress in the following remediation plan.

Additionally, the bill seeks to require the VA to enter into partnerships with recognized schools of nursing to provide undergraduate nursing students enrolled in such schools with standardized training. The bill lists the 11 areas the training should involve, including PTSD, TBI, and military sexual trauma.

Mr. Speaker, this bill addresses issues the committee has expressed concerns about in the past. I support its passage.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the passage of H.R. 3234, as amended.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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