Federal Manager's Daily Report

The VA has said it obtained positive results from a recent management initiative most commonly associated with the military—a “stand down” in which work stops temporarily in order to perform a concentrated assessment of what is being done well, what is not, and how to improve.

In the VA’s case, the day (a Saturday, February 27) focused on reviewing the records of more than 80,000 veterans to get those waiting for urgent care off wait lists—as the VA put it, “to look at the patients who needed our help the most and were waiting too long.”

It broke down the urgent care requests into four categories: important and acute, clinical concerns with highest impact on patient outcome and more time-sensitive such as cardiology; important and chronic, services that address primarily long-term problems with medium risk and time sensitivity such as primary care or audiology; routine, clinical activities judged to have low relative risk and time sensitivity or focusing on non-medical matters such as genomic medicine or telephone case management; and support services, which contribute to veteran well-being such as nutrition and dietetics.

As a result, the VA said, 93 percent of veterans waiting for urgent care have been contacted, with many receiving earlier appointments.