VA Seeking Your Input on Criteria for Future Health Care Changes

February 2, 2021

The VA has opened a 90-day comment period to get feedback from veterans regarding proposed criteria designed to assess future improvements to the VA health care system.

On February 1st, the VA published a draft of the criteria they are planning to use as they conduct market research within the veteran population to determine how the VA can improve the health care system to better service veterans.

This set of criteria will be used to analyze the collected research so the VA can see how best to focus their improvement efforts to meet the most vital needs of the veteran population.

The VA states that this research will be vital to the “next step of our transformation journey: Designing the future of VA around the Veterans we serve.”

The evaluation criteria covers six different categories:

1. Veterans’ Need for Care & Services (Demand)

2. Accessibility of Care for Veterans (Access)

3. Impact on Mission (Mission)

4. Providing the Highest Quality Whole Health Care (Quality)

5. Effective Use of Resources for Veteran Care (Cost Effectiveness)

6. Ensuring a Safe Environment of Care (Sustainability)

The criteria in each category sets standards and priorities designed to ensure the VA focuses on the most important aspects of Veteran care, including considering health equity, improving access to care, expanding care options, considering trends in health care in the US, promoting high-quality recruitment to ensure highest quality of care, focusing on creating sustainability, and more.

You can read the full proposed criteria and submit any comments you may have here.

Once the VA finalizes these criteria, they will start conducting marketing research among the veteran population later in 2021.