Veterans' Health Care: Limited Progress Made to Address Concerns That Led to High Risk Designation
Abstract
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has taken action to partially meet two of the five criteria GAO uses to assess removal from the High-Risk List (leadership commitment and an action plan), but it has not met the other three (agency capacity, monitoring efforts, and demonstrated progress). Specifically, VA officials have taken leadership actions such as establishing a task force, working groups, and a governance structure for addressing the issues that led to the high-risk designation. VA provided GAO with an action plan in August 2016 that acknowledged the deep-rooted nature of the five areas of concern GAO identified: (1) ambiguous policies and inconsistent processes; (2) inadequate oversight and accountability; (3) information technology challenges; (4) inadequate training for VA staff; and (5) unclear resource needs and allocation priorities. Although VAs action plan outlined some steps VA plans to take over the next several years, several sections were missing analyses of the root causes of the issues, resources needed, and clear metrics to measure progress.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 15, 2017
- Accession Number
- AD1029843
Entities
People
- Debra Draper
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office