Attention A T users. To access the menus on this page please perform the following steps. 1. Please switch auto forms mode to off. 2. Hit enter to expand a main menu option (Health, Benefits, etc). 3. To enter and activate the submenu links, hit the down arrow. You will now be able to tab or arrow up or down through the submenu options to access/activate the submenu links.

VA Healthcare-VISN 4

 

Best Practices - Facility Outcomes

2016 Annual Report

Best Practices - Facility Outcomes

VA Butler Healthcare's Veteran X group.
VA Butler Healthcare's Veteran X group.

VA Butler Healthcare has two group programs that put Veterans in charge of creating a treatment plan for a peer. Veteran X (a mixed gender group) and Veteran Hope (for women Veterans only) are fictitious Veterans who face challenges similar to those faced by the group's participants. While helping Veteran X and Veteran Hope solve their issues, participants gain valuable skills and information to resolve their own issues, including how to enlist the assistance and support of a VA staff member or access community resources. These groups are really about Veterans helping Veterans – sharing goals, information, and solutions.

For the third consecutive year, Lebanon VA Medical Center's Canteen was selected as one of the best dining facilities in VA medical centers nationwide. The annual Outstanding Canteen Award recognizes VAMC Canteen services that exceed customer service expectations, reflect outstanding operating results, and meet or exceed efficiency standards.

A group of Veterans play a game designed to increase spatial awareness and hand-eye coordination.
A group of Veterans enrolled in the Coatesville VA Medical Center's Mobile Veterans Program play a game designed to increase spatial awareness and hand-eye coordination.

Coatesville VA Medical Center's Mobile Veterans Program takes VA care out into the community. VA care professionals provide respite care, meaningful activities, socialization, and health care oversight at five local American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts. The Joint Commission included this program in their Leading Practice Library and it has been presented at local, state, and national conferences. Program staff are coaching and mentoring staff at VA Butler Healthcare to help them roll out a similar initiative there.

In FY 2016, VA launched the VHA Promising Practices Consortium, a new program to identify ideas to better serve Veterans. More than 250 ideas were narrowed to a field of 13 Gold Status Best Practices. One of those ideas came out of VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. The WAKE Score for Recovery from Anesthesia/Sedation replaces a previous anesthesia system which would often leave patients with nausea/vomiting, lightheadedness, and pain by taking on a "zero tolerance" approach to anesthesia side effects.

Ann Kwiatkowski discusses care coordination needs with a Veteran.
Ann Kwiatkowski, Wilkes-Barre VA Medical Center's traveling Veteran program coordinator, discusses care coordination needs with Mr. Wayne Wenrich, a Veteran who splits his time between northeastern Pennsylvania and Florida.

VA's Traveling Veteran program, launched at Wilkes-Barre VA Medical Center in 2015, ensures traveling Veterans have uninterrupted access to care wherever they are. Veterans who know they will be traveling are asked to tell their health care provider where and when they will be going, and any specific care concerns they may have. The provider then collaborates with the facility's Traveling Veteran Coordinator (TVC) to ensure any pending clinical orders, such as blood work, are performed at a location near the Veteran's travel destination. TVCs answer care coordination questions, coordinate appointments, and help Veterans navigate activities at unfamiliar locations. A recent survey of Veterans using the program at the Wilkes-Barre VAMC resulted in overwhelmingly positive comments about the convenience of having a single point of contact in the TVC, and about the care they received while traveling.