Expanding the Health Policy Mission of the Veterans Health Administration
Summary
With 1,255 VA medical facilities serving over 9 million veterans each year, the VA — through its Veterans Health Administration — maintains the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States. The VA is a national leader in delivering quality health services and driving innovation in high-priority healthcare issues such as telehealth, precision medicine, suicide prevention, and opioid safety. Yet the VA remains an under-appreciated and underutilized health policy stakeholder, involved in minimal interactions with other federal health agencies and exerting limited influence on the private healthcare system. This is a mistake. The VA is a robust healthcare provider with innovative clinical and operational practices that should be firmly entrenched in the national health policy conversation.
As a remedy, we propose strategically coordinating and consolidating the healthcare innovation, demonstration, and implementation capacities of the VA and HHS in order to ensure care of the highest possible quality across urgent issues. Elevating the VA as a major healthcare policy stakeholder will demonstrate the value of government-run healthcare, promote best practices for building an effective and forward-thinking healthcare system, and advance the VA’s “fourth mission” of supporting national preparedness.
Investing in oxygen as a utility through on-demand infrastructure can improve access and mortality rates globally. Healthcare experts propose how an international coalition led by USAID can transform the medical oxygen marketplaces of low- and middle-income countries to ensure every patient has the oxygen they need.
In an environment where fire seasons are turning to fire years, and summer skies across North America are filled with wildfire smoke from as far away as another coast, the need for scientifically accurate wildland fire policy has never been greater. Over the past several months, COMPASS Science Communication has been working in collaboration with […]
The U.S. response to wildland fire can be better informed by science, evidence, and Indigenous perspectives.
FAS揭示23可行的recommendations aimed at improving woodland fire policy