The announcement follows reports that the VA soon will eliminate up to 35,000 positions in patient care and support staff. Image: George Sheldon/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe VA has announced a planned reorganization of its Veterans Health Administration—which makes up the large majority of the department—with a focus on streamlining management, although saying that the initiative “is not a reduction in force or an attempt to reduce staffing levels at VHA, and VA does not expect a significant change in overall staff levels once it’s complete.”
“Multiple independent reviews from VA’s Inspector General, the Government Accountability Office and others have underscored the need for reorganizing VHA. Those reviews highlighted governance weaknesses and how the organization’s management structure is rife with middle managers who have overlapping responsibilities, slowing decision making and creating unnecessary burdens to serving veterans,” the VA said.
“VHA’s reorganization will incorporate this feedback by reducing duplicative management layers and putting the right people in the right places without reducing staff . . . staffing and operations at VA medical centers and clinics will not be changing as part of this reorganization,” it said
Key elements, it said, are to include that the VHA central office “will have responsibility for setting policy goals and conducting financial management, oversight and compliance” while operations centers and Veterans Integrated Service Networks will take policy direction from the central office “to develop operational, quality and performance standards that will guide VA’s more than 1,300 medical facilities.”
The reorganization “will result in clearer guidance and more decision-making authority for VA health care systems” and “will better position the organization to focus on care delivery — not bureaucracy — and result in more defined roles and faster decision-making for all VHA employees,” it said.
It said the changes are to be made over 18 to 24 months starting early in 2026.
The announcement follows reports that the VA soon will eliminate up to 35,000 positions in patient care and support staff—on top of a reduction of some 30,000 year-to-date—mostly by canceling vacancy announcements on positions that have gone unfilled for an extended period.
The VHA started the year with nearly 430,000 employees out of a department-wide total of about 480,000.
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