In his "State of the VA" briefing this week, Veterans Affairs Secretary Dr. David Shulkin stated the challenges facing the Department of Veterans Affairs. Many of Arkansas' veterans are affected by these challenges, in their health care and in their benefits.
The Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System (CAVHS) is well aware of this, and we are actively improving services to our veterans every day.
An active campaign has been undertaken to improve our veterans' experiences when they are visiting or calling one of our many campuses. We are growing our clinical services to improve access to care, and we recognize the need to positively engage veterans as partners in their health and health-care plans. Tremendous strides have been made in improving our telephone services, and our system has been updated to reduce the number of call transfers before a veteran gets to the right person.
Delays in service have been in the news; we recognize that one veteran who experiences a delay is one veteran too many. At CAVHS, we continue to improve access to primary care, specialty care and mental health care within 30 days. Our stretch goal is for 100 percent of our veterans to be satisfied with the quality and timeliness of care.
Anyone driving by our Little Rock facility will notice that we have construction projects underway in several areas. When complete, these modernized areas will improve the flow and efficiency of medical services within a comfortable and inviting environment.
We have also retooled our internal systems to improve employee satisfaction, and we're empowering our staff to always do the right thing. We believe that a healthy and happy veteran is inherently linked to a happy and healthy staff.
We certainly experience the same challenges as other health-care systems in Arkansas when it comes to recruiting and retaining of highly qualified providers and staff members, a No. 1 priority. CAVHS has more than 2,000 health-care professionals who provide a wealth of services to Arkansas' veterans. However, when a service is not available through one of our dedicated professionals, our goal is to quickly facilitate care by accessing a network of community-based medical colleagues who partner with our organization. We are actively seeking more of these partnerships as a way to increase the scope of veteran care.
CAVHS is certainly challenged, like other government organizations, to continue these improvement efforts, all while navigating legislative and regulatory rapids that often change course. We are fortunate to have a secretary of Veterans Affairs who embraces the "principles-based organization" concept as we seek to improve the health and well-being of our veterans.
One of Secretary Shulkin's bold new goals is "zero veteran suicides." CAVHS is committed to preventing veteran suicides, and we have sharply increased the number of staff who are dedicated to VA suicide prevention programs. Increased outreach efforts and partnerships with community organizations are helping us reach more veterans than ever before, resulting in a significant number of saved lives.
However, one Arkansas veteran suicide is too many. We need all Arkansans to partner with us to support our veterans and to get to "zeroes for our Arkansas heroes."
I encourage any veteran in crisis, or their friends and family, to call our local suicide-prevention team at (501) 257-3229. You will be heard and we will do everything in our power to get you help.
In the final analysis, we are more than another government organization. We are a community-based and veteran-driven health-care, benefits and memorial system that treasures our veteran service organization, congressional, and public partnerships, all dedicated to taking care of our nation's heroes with dignity and respect.
We stand with Secretary Shulkin and pledge our devotion to his work, and to our veterans.
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Margie A. Scott, M.D., is Medical Center director of the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System.
Editorial on 06/02/2017