Letter to the Honorable Robert McDonald, Secretary of the US Department of Veterans Affairs - Push for V-A to Move Forward on Local Pilot Program to Improve Veterans' Health Care

Letter

Dear Secretary McDonald,

In order to address recent critical issues with data and health care accessibility for our nation's Veterans, Congress worked with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to pass the Veterans Choice Act. The intent of the legislation, which we supported, was to shorten wait times and address efficiency issues by enabling Veterans to access non-VA physicians if they are more than 40 miles away from a VA facility or if they are going to have to wait longer than 30 days for a VA provider to see them.

Despite the intentions of the Veterans Choice program, wait times have not substantially improved. In February 2015, we, along with 38 of our Senate colleagues, wrote to you to highlight our concerns with the implementation of the program. Since then, there are still lengthy delays in approving care for veterans and in getting reimbursed for providing care. Indeed, some health care networks have stopped taking patients within the Veterans Choice program altogether.

To that end, we write to request an update on the implementation of the National Capital Region Veteran Centered Care in the Community Pilot Project. The purpose of this pilot project is to provide greater value to the veteran by improving access to their electronic health data, giving veterans access to the best available chronic care management, and improving personalized care options. This program is intended to provide a prototype for expanding the Veterans Choice program across the nation, using an academic/public/private partnership model.

Patient¬ centered care is a critical component of a high-performing, high-¬quality health care system. Expansion of health information technology and consumer E-health tools have created new opportunities for individuals to participate actively in monitoring and directing their health and health care. Patient¬ generated data offers yet another engagement and analytical tool if the data can be integrated in a meaningful way into the electronic health record and presented to providers in an actionable, distilled format that supports clinical decision making.

One of the biggest challenges to successful, comprehensive data integration and analytics may be the disparate, inaccessible silos of patient information across a variety of providers and health systems. This lack of interoperability with community providers negatively impacts access and quality of care. Limits to the free flow of veterans' healthcare information across providers and care settings create a barrier to a comprehensive, holistic patient record and to the mobility of Veterans' data, which is a fundamental component of choice. The National Capital Region Veteran Centered Care in the Community Pilot Project intends to address these challenges by providing a platform based approach to full spectrum personalized care for veterans through interoperability with community partners.

Once again, we would like to request further information regarding the allocation of the already approved funding to assign the required project managers and advance the implementation of the National Capital Region Veteran Centered Care in the Community Pilot Project. We appreciate your attention to this important matter, as well as your advocacy on behalf of our nation's veterans.

Sincerely,

Mark R. Warner
U.S. Senator

Tim Kaine
U.S. Senator

Source