The Department of Veterans Affairs is implementing maintenance improvements for medical records in response to four whistleblower disclosures alleging shoddy management of medical files, the Office of Special Counsel has said.
Lax management resulted in medical files for veterans in New York State being effectively lost or unavailable for either the veterans or health care professionals.
The four employees, all medical record technicians at the VA’s Western New York Healthcare System in Buffalo, disclosed that medical files – including cardiac records, dental records and Agent Orange registry records — were randomly thrown in boxes rather than kept in any order, that many Social Security numbers were not properly attributed to the correct veteran name, and that mold-infested files were not handled properly to prevent further contamination and to ensure their restoration, according to OSC.
It said that after the employees reported the problems to the director of VA health care for Upstate New York, the director ordered a review but did not substantiate the concerns raised.
That prompted the employees to file a complaint with OSC, which then required a thorough investigation by the VA, which in turn substantiated the majority of the employees’ concerns and an improvement plan was put in place.