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Strategic Plan for Geriatrics and Extended Care in the Veterans Health Administration: Background, Plan, and Progress to Date
Author(s) -
Shay Kenneth,
Hyduke Barbara,
Burris James F.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of the american geriatrics society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.992
H-Index - 232
eISSN - 1532-5415
pISSN - 0002-8614
DOI - 10.1111/jgs.12165
Subject(s) - medicine , workforce , geriatrics , health care , incentive , multidisciplinary approach , strategic planning , population , chronic care , nursing , family medicine , business , marketing , economic growth , social science , environmental health , psychiatry , sociology , economics , microeconomics , primary care
The leaders of G eriatrics and E xtended C are ( GEC ) in the V eterans H ealth A dministration ( VHA ) undertook a strategic planning process that led to approval in 2009 of a multidisciplinary, evidence‐guided strategic plan. This article reviews the four goals contained in that plan and describes VHA 's progress in addressing them. The goals included transforming the healthcare system to a veteran‐centric approach, achieving universal access to a panel of services, ensuring that the V eterans A ffair's ( VA ) healthcare workforce was adequately prepared to manage the needs of the growing elderly veteran population, and integrating continuous improvement into all care enhancements. There has been substantial progress in addressing all four goals. All VHA health care has undergone an extensive transformation to patient‐centered care, has enriched the services it can offer caregivers of dependent veterans, and has instituted models to better integrate VA and non‐ VA cares and services. A range of successful models of geriatric care described in the professional literature has been adapted to VA environments to gauge suitability for broader implementation. An executive‐level task force developed a three‐pronged approach for enhancing the VA 's geriatric workforce. The VHA 's performance measurement approaches increasingly include incentives to enhance the quality of management of vulnerable elderly adults in primary care. The GEC strategic plan was intended to serve as a road map for keeping VHA aligned with an ambitious but important long‐term vision for GEC services. Although no discrete set of resources was appropriated for fulfillment of the plan's recommendations, this initial report reflects substantial progress in addressing most of its goals.