VA Puts Wait Time Online

VA Makes Wait Times for Patients Transparent for Veterans

New online tool first of its kind

 WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is taking unprecedented steps to increase transparency.  Today, VA launched a new Access and Quality Tool that provides Veterans with an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand way of accessing patient wait time and quality of care data. This tool not only provides Veterans with more information about VA services, it increases accountability and ensures VA is held to a higher standard.

“Veterans must have access to information that is clear and understandable to make informed decisions about their health care,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. David J. Shulkin. “No other health-care system in the country releases this type of information on wait times. This allows Veterans to see how VA is performing.”

The tool allows Veterans to access the average times patients are waiting to be seen in their local area; how Veterans describe their experiences scheduling primary- and specialty-care appointments at specific VA facilities; timeliness of appointments for care needed right away; and the quality of health care delivered at VA medical centers compared with local private-sector hospitals. The Access and Quality Tool is the most transparent and easy to understand wait time and quality data website in the health-care industry.  

“This tool is another example of VA leading the way,” said Acting Under Secretary for Health Dr. Poonam Alaigh. “No one in the private sector publishes data this way. This tool will instill a spirit of competition and encourage our medical facilities to proactively address access and quality issues while empowering Veterans to make choices according to what works best for them and their families.”

VA will continue to make improvements to this tool based on the feedback it receives from Veterans. 

The Access and Quality Tool can be found at www.accesstocare.va.gov. Watch this video to learn how the tool can be used.

Some Navy SEALs "Selling the Trident"

Navy SEALs accused of profiteering, putting lives "in danger"
CBS News
April 12, 2017

As Navy SEALs talk publicly to CBS News about drug abuse in the ranks for the first time, some members of the elite force say drugs aren’t the only problem.

According to interviews, e-mails and text messages from nine current and former SEALs, “...there’s been a corruption within the teams,” one of them wrote. “The death of our quiet professionalism continues to erode at our ethos, and endangers our teammates overseas, not to mention our families at home.”

Three Navy SEALs -- one active duty, two retired -- agreed to talk to CBS News on camera if we disguised their faces and change their voices to protect them from retribution.

One SEAL told CBS News correspondent David Martin that “the community has got to stop seeking the limelight and exposing what they do or it continues to put people in danger.”

They accused fellow SEALs of profiteering -- or as they called it -- “selling the Trident,” a reference to the insignia they earn after making it through basic training. Fitness routines based on SEAL training have become a cottage industry as have books by former SEALs.

“They are just guys that are going in to try and sell the brand, to sell that trident on their chest, to make a buck from it,” said one SEAL. “And frankly if that’s all they were doing, so what? But the thing they’re selling is information.”

These men say movies like “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Captain Phillips” are all too accurate in showing the way SEALs operate. One movie, “Act of Valor,” included active duty SEALs in the cast.
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VA Medical Center Director Relieved of Duties

VA News Releases
VA Responds to IG Report on Health-Care Inspection at D.C. VA Medical Center
04/12/2017

WASHINGTON — Today, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) released an interim summary report titled Healthcare Inspection – Patient Safety Concerns at the Washington, D.C. VA Medical Center (VAMC), Washington, D.C.

The Department of Veterans Affairs thanks the OIG for its quick work reviewing the D.C. VAMC. The department considers this an urgent patient-safety issue. 

Effective immediately, the medical center director has been relieved from his position and temporarily assigned to administrative duties.

Dr. Charles Faselis has been named the acting Medical Center Director.

VA is conducting a swift and comprehensive review into these findings. VA’s top priority is to ensure that no patient has been harmed. If appropriate, additional disciplinary actions will be taken in accordance with the law.


Previous Release
On March 21, 2017, a confidential complainant forwarded to the Office of Inspector General(OIG) documents describing equipment and supply issues at the Washington D.C. VA Medical Center (the Medical Center) sufficient to potentially compromise patient safety. OIG promptly reviewed the documentation.

On March 29, 2017, OIG deployed a Rapid Response Team to assess the allegations. OIG’s team conducted interviews, collected documents, and conducted a physical inspection of the Medical Center’s satellite storage areas on March 29–30, 2017. The team returned for an additional site visit on April 4–6, 2017, and is on-site for a third inspection at the time of this report’s publication.

OIG has preliminarily identified a number of serious and troubling deficiencies at the Medical Center that place patients at unnecessary risk. Although we have not identified at this time any adverse patient outcomes, we found that:

 there was no effective inventory system for managing the availability of medical equipment and supplies used for patient care;
 there was no effective system to ensure that supplies and equipment that were subject to patient safety recalls were not used on patients;
 18 of the 25 sterile satellite storage areas for supplies were dirty;
 over $150 million in equipment or supplies had not been inventoried in the past year and therefore had not been accounted for;
 a large warehouse stocked full of non-inventoried equipment, materials and supplies has a lease expiring on April 30, 2017, with no effective plan to move the contents of the warehouse by that date; and
 there are numerous and critical open senior staff positions that will make prompt remediation of these issues very challenging.

At least some of these issues have been known to the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) senior management for some time without effective remediation.

Although our work is continuing, we believed it appropriate to publish this Interim Summary Report given the exigent nature of the issues we have preliminarily identified and the lack of confidence in VHA adequately and timely fixing the root causes of these issues. We are also including recommendations for immediate implementation.
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Tenacity and Twitter Help Vietnam Veteran Buddies Connect After 50 Years

Vietnam Veteran Reunited With War Buddy 50 Years After Losing Touch, Thanks to Twitter
Inside Edition
by Johanna Li
April 11, 2017

It’s been 50 years since a Vietnam veteran spoke to his long lost friend, but thanks to Twitter, the pair has been reunited once again.

Charles Lacy, an army photographer during the Vietnam War, will get the chance to reconnect with an old friend he met in the army through Skype after they lost touch shortly after serving in South Korea in 1968.

The reunion comes after a massive social media effort run by 19-year-old Bryce Lacy of Texas to track down his dad’s army connection Kermit Powers.

"You can use [social media] for good things and help people reconnect and bring happiness to people," Bryce told InsideEdition.com.

He said it all started when he spotted Powers’ picture in his dad’s house one summer. The next time he saw it, he decided to ask his dad about it.
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Missing 86 Year Old Veteran Found With Throat Slashed and SUV Stolen

Missing elderly man found with throat slashed survives
News 4 Jax
By Hailey Winslow
April 10, 2017

Family members said Clark is a Navy and Air Force veteran who then retired after years with Maxwell House. They said he was a generous person and would give anyone the shirt of his back.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Police are trying to find out whoever slashed a missing elderly man's throat, dumped him in a water-filled ditch miles from his home and stole his SUV.

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said a witness found 86-year-old Melvin Clark on Saturday afternoon lying on Maxville Macclenny Highway, a dirt road west of U.S. 301. Police said Clark had stab wounds and his clothes were completely soaked, appearing to have pulled himself out of a ditch and onto the dirt road.

Clark was airlifted to UF Health Jacksonville with life-threatening injuries.

"He’s got a large cut from ear to ear on his neck," said his wife, Gayle Clark.

Investigators learned Clark was reported missing from Neptune Beach home just over three hours earlier. Clark's wife told police he was going to Academy Sports on Atlantic Boulevard, and then to the Navy Exchange on Mayport Road.

Clark's black 2005 Honda CRV was not found with the victim. Police entered it in the federal stolen vehicle database and Miami-Dade police notified the JSO at 10:30 a.m. Sunday that the vehicle was found in their jurisdiction.

In addition to his SUV stolen, the family said there were fraudulent transactions on Clark's credit card.
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