“The Department of Veterans Affairs still has some steps to take to improve its appointment scheduling processes and create timely patient access to care, according to new reporting from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).”
“The report, which outlines current recommendations for VA to improve its appointment scheduling processes, builds on years of turmoil at the agency. VA has long struggled with appointment scheduling and creating timely patient care access, and GAO has investigated and made recommendations in reports published in 2012 and 2018.”
“This latest report reviews the agency’s progress with the GAO recommendations and looks ahead at future improvement areas, especially as VA rolls out its new Veterans Community Care Program (VCCP)…”
“VA has succeeded in making some of GAO’s priority recommendations. Following the 2012 investigation, for instance, GAO suggested VA require all of its medical center administrators use the same, standardized electronic scheduling system and implement a training strategy for the tool.”
“Since then, VA has successfully rolled out the technology and issued adequate scheduler training.”
“In addition to looking at VA’s past and current efforts to overhaul appointment scheduling, GAO also evaluated…” Read the full article here.
Source: VA Appointment Scheduling, Patient Care Access Need Fine Tuning – By Sara Heath, July 29, 2019. Patient Engagement HIT.
