VA Healthcare-VISN 4
Improving Access to Care
Improving Access to Care
One of VISN 4's most important goals is to enhance Veterans' ability to access our services. To that end, we've significantly expanded the care provided at our network of outpatient clinics, increased Telehealth usage, added services and staff, and extended our hours in order to improve access to VA care. We want to make it easy for Veterans to access every health care service our Network offers.
Other Improvements
In response to patient feedback, Erie VA Medical Center decentralized the call center to allow patients to contact their Patient Aligned Care Teams (PACT) directly by phone. As a result of the decentralization of the call center, PACTs are fully staffed, making those teams a stronger health care asset for patients. Communication between Veterans and their PACTs has significantly improved, especially those seeking care at outpatient clinics. Many Veterans have commended this new change for improving communication and access to their personal PACTs.
Access initiatives at Wilkes-Barre VA Medical Center centered not only on process execution, such as the establishment of a call center and process improvements related to Audiocare and reminder letters, but also on facility improvements for increased Veteran parking and improved wayfinding.
At Wilmington VA Medical Center, optimized primary care clinic appointment grids allow providers to see more Veterans and better assess scheduling capacity. Teams also reviewed primary care panels to identify unused capacity, making way for more Veterans to be assigned a primary care provider.
