Private sector collaboration can help VA staffing

Instead of closing medical facilities because of staffing shortages, The American Legion wants the Department of Veterans Affairs to pay closer attention to assistance that can be rendered by private practitioners.

In written testimony submitted for a May 15 congressional hearing, the Legion urged VA “to work more comprehensively with community partners when struggling to fill critical shortages within VA’s ranks. VA is FAILING in many of these areas while neighboring hospitals offer to help, yet VA remains undeterred and rebuffs assistance.”

The hearing, held by the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Health, examined VA’s ongoing difficulties in keeping many medical positions filled – creating shortages that sometimes lead to the shutting down of medical facilities and services.

As an example, the Legion’s testimony offered the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Wash., where, last December, the leadership shut down the emergency room on weeknights and weekends because of an ER physician staffing shortage. When a visiting team of Legion experts asked why more doctors weren’t hired, the facility’s director said the Spokane area had a “critical shortage of ER doctors.”

Subsequently, the Legion team visited two private hospitals in the city and made inquiries. Its findings included:

• Neither hospital was experiencing shortages in ER doctors.

• Each hospital had service-swapping agreements with the VA facility, “yet these agreements had not been acted on in some time.”

• One medical director said that finding qualified ER doctors was not difficult, “and that she uses several contracting agencies that have never had a problem filling their requests.”The leadership at both hospitals said they would never consider reducing ER operating hours as a viable option, based on the existing business climate.
  

  After sharing its findings with the Spokane facility, the Legion team offered to facilitate introductions or host meetings. But the Mann-Grandstaff leadership “ignored our suggestions and continues to have an Urgent Care Center, rather than a true Emergency Department.”

  Although the medical center’s director assured the Legion team that its ER would be fully operational by this spring, “we now understand that the emergency room will not be opened any time before October 2015. This date is contingent on recruiting quality staff.”

  On Jan. 30, VA’s Office of Inspector General reported the largest staffing shortages were among nurses, psychologists, physical therapists, physician assistants and medical officers.

  The Legion stated that it expects VA “to ensure that veterans have access to the quality healthcare they have come to expect…. VA leadership needs to do more to work with community members and stakeholders.

  “Ultimately, if the VA continues to struggle with retention and recruitment, the trend of closures (or continued closures) for multiple departments within VAMCs nationwide will continue.”

  Three years ago, the Legion recommended to VA’s Central Office that it should create a task force to facilitate the hiring of executives for the Veterans Health Administration. The task force would “assess the numbers of vacancies and positions with acting staff across the country and … swiftly hire these positions as permanent positions.”

  • The Legion also recommended that VA create a “hiring and tracking task force to monitor and speed up the hiring of primary and specialty care positions.”

    • Click here to see The American Legion’s complete written testimony.