The Government Accountability Office has called for better
coordination between the Departments of Defense and
Veterans Affairs in supplying vocational rehab and
employment services to seriously injured servicemembers.
It said VA faces significant challenges in speeding up
VR-and-E services, such as the difficultly determining
when individuals would be ready for them because it has
to be done on a case-by-case basis, plus DoD concerns
that VA outreach might not support its retention goals,
as well as a lack of data from DoD informing VA of
seriously injured servicemembers and their locations.
VA has moved to speed up these services by instructing
regional offices to prioritize seriously injured vets
returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, and has asked DoD
for data to identify and monitor those individuals,
according to GAO-05-167.
It said a data-sharing agreement between the two
departments is pending, and that currently, VA currently
relies on regional offices to identify and track these
vets.
