Five VA hospitals are set to be removed from a list of 15 poorly performing facilities that are considered high-risk, according to an assessment that is set to be released this week by the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a report Tuesday.
Removing these hospitals from the list would mark an overall improvement in the quality of care that patient’s receive at the nation’s 146 veteran hospitals, the Wall Street Journal reports.
VA officials have recognized that it is important to improve care at the facilities as the VA Mission Act, which President Trump signed in June, will allow veterans to receive care in the private health sector. The VA Mission Act would also allow VA Secretary Robert Wilkie to refer veterans to other care centers if VA hospitals fall short on quality standards.
The five VA hospitals that showed improvement were part of a program which transferred personnel from centers that performed better on the VA quality care rating system to high-risk centers that performed poorly. The program, additionally, funneled resources into these low-rank centers.
While VA officials mark this as a success for the program, 10 hospitals are poised to remain in the high-risk category. Most VA care centers, however, have recorded improvements in their service quality, which is measured by death rates, complications, patient satisfaction, overall efficiency, and physician capacity under a system called Strategic Analytics for Improvement and Learning. Only seven have reported declines in care, and only one high-risk facility, located in Washington, D.C., has faced a rate decline.
VA hospitals have shown continuous improvement in their quality of care standards since SAIL data was publicly released in 2015. Top VA officials and health care analysts attribute the success to increased transparency.
The VA quality care rating system ranks centers on a scale of one to five stars, one being a center that performs poorly. VA officials expect the five high-risk hospitals to upgrade to two stars. The 10 remaining low-ranking facilities, officials say, are continuing targets for improvement.
