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VA Needs a Systematic Approach To Assess the Management of Its Outpatient Clinics

HRD-85-15 Published: Dec 07, 1984. Publicly Released: Dec 07, 1984.
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Highlights

GAO reviewed the management of 15 Veterans Administration (VA) outpatient clinics to determine the extent to which Department of Medicine and Surgery (DMS) officials had established performance standards, collected needed data, and provided the incentives necessary to assess the efficiency of individual clinics.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Veterans Administration The Administrator of Veterans Affairs should direct the Chief Medical Director, DMS, to: (1) identify, in consultation with central office, regional, and outpatient clinic officials, performance indicators needed to measure outpatient clinic efficiency; (2) establish, and update as necessary, generally accepted standards for indicators that central office and regional management officials can use to identify clinics needing management attention; and (3) require that regional directors substantiate, on a clinic-by-clinic basis, the reasons for substantial deviations from the revised performance standards and routinely report such information to the responsible central office officials.
Closed – Implemented
A VA task force issued a white paper dated March 1988 in which it summarized the VA response to this recommendation. Standards were developed, staffing guidelines were issued along with instructions, and guidelines for performance of ambulatory surgery. The white paper stated that implementation of the resource allocation methodology outpatient model resulted in more efficient program management.

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Topics

Budget administrationData collectionHealth care facilitiesHealth care servicesMonitoringPerformance appraisalStandards evaluationVeteransOutpatient carePerformance measures