The VA has made some progress toward getting its health care functions removed from GAO’s high-risk list, but much remains to be done, a Senate committee has been told.
GAO said that since the initial inclusion on that list in 2015, the VA put together an action plan, but “several sections were missing analyses of the root causes of the issues, resources needed, and clear metrics to measure progress.”
For example, it said, “VA intends to establish a comprehensive health care training management policy and a mandatory annual training process; however, as of December 2016, VA officials said they had not begun drafting a new policy to replace an outdated document from 2002 that contains training requirements that are no longer relevant. The high-level nature of the descriptions in the action plan and lack of action to update outdated policies and set goals for improving training shows that VA lacks leadership commitment to address the concerns that led to our inclusion of this area in the 2015 high-risk.”
GAO said its five main areas of concern were “ambiguous policies and inconsistent processes; inadequate oversight and accountability; information technology challenges; inadequate training for VA staff; and unclear resource needs and allocation priorities.”
“We have continued to find these issues in our subsequent work,” a witness said. “Since the 2015 high-risk report, we have made new recommendations to VA relating to each of the five areas of concern.”
GAO said it has made more than 250 recommendations to VA health care since 2010, about half of which have not been implemented and about a quarter of which are more than three years old.
