From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Communicating VA Medical Center Quality to Veterans Description: The Department of Veterans Affairs reports on the health care quality of both VA and non-VA medical centers on two websites. We looked at how useful and easily accessible veterans find this information when determining where to access care. Related GAO Work: GAO-17-741: VA Health Care Quality: VA Should Improve the Information It Publicly Reports on the Quality of Care at Its Medical Facilities Released: September 2017 [ Background Music ] [ Randy Williamson: ] We would like the VA to present more information that is accessible and easier to understand. [ Background Music ] [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Jacques Arsenault. Have you ever needed to find a new doctor or healthcare provider? Maybe you spent time looking up online profiles and reviews. To help veterans make informed choices, the Veterans Health Administration reports on health care quality of VA medical centers on its website, and others. I spoke with Randy Williamson, a director in our Health Care team, to talk about GAO's new report on the quality of care at VA medical facilities. I wanted Randy to tell me about what information the VA is sharing with veterans to help them find high-quality and accessible healthcare. [ Randy Williamson: ] Basically, there are two websites available to the public where veterans can go to find information on quality of care and accessibility at VA facilities. One of those websites is called, Hospital Compare. And Hospital Compare is a nationwide database operated actually by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and it compares the quality of care among all major hospitals in the United States, about 4,000 in total. VA reports 35 different quality metrics for its medical centers on this website. So veterans who log into this website, Hospital Compare, could get specific information on quality indicators, such as, degree to which stroke patients receive appropriate and timely clot-dissolving drugs, for example, or readmission rates for pneumonia patients. Also, veterans could get information on patient experiences, which is very important to them. For example, how well physicians communicated with patients. The second source of information can be accessed through VA's own website, and the information available here is much more comprehensive. It includes 111 different quality measures from all of its medical centers. This information includes the 35 measures reported to Hospital Compare, as well as a whole lot more. For example, it also reports measures on VA's website that would include wait times for primary care and specialty care, which is very important. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] So it sounds like there's a lot of information between these two websites. What's being done to ensure that the data on the VA medical centers remains up-to-date on these sites? [ Randy Williamson: ] Well, once a quarter, the VA updates the data on Hospital Compare website and on its own website. It's based on patient clinical information, which it keeps on each medical center. So, the data is kept current pretty much on a regular basis. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And do we have a sense of how useful veterans find this information when it comes to making choices, like deciding which hospital or center to go to, for example? [ Randy Williamson: ] Yeah, until recently, the quality of the information the VA reported to the public was not that easy for veterans to find and to interpret. For example, it often included, difficult to understand language, or the data was not organized or clearly explained, or the site was not easy to navigate, especially as you're comparing medical centers and having to toggle back and forth between various computer screens. So it wasn't always that user-friendly. Then, in April, VA launched a new, improved website that is much more accessible to the public, and information is presented more clearly. Unfortunately, that website is pretty limited. It only includes a subset of 15 of the indicators. It needs to be much more relevant to what veterans are seeking. Also, a very simple thing, the VA website doesn't provide a link to the Hospital Compare website, and while that may not seem like a big deal, if you don't have a link and the veterans aren't familiar with navigating on the internet, that can be a real problem. [ Background Music ] [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Considering the challenges VA is facing with trying to keep report data accurate, I wanted Randy to walk me through some of the recommendations his team has for the VA. [ Randy Williamson: ] There are two recommendations in the report. For the first recommendation, there are basically two parts. First, we would like VA to report a broader range of quality measures to Hospital Compare, beyond the 35 they already report, and the second part of that is that we would like VA to present more information that is accessible and easier to understand. For the second recommendation, we would like VA to conduct an assessment to better ensure that the data they're getting from medical centers, the patient clinical information, is accurate and complete. They've never conducted such an analysis, and we think that that's important. So, VA currently has no assurance that such consistency exists, and we think that's important to find that out. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And, lastly, what do you believe is the key takeaway from this report? [ Randy Williamson: ] Well, VA has collected a variety of information that can enable veterans to compare the quality of care at VA hospitals, and also non-VA hospitals, and that's a good thing. But VA needs to make more of that information readily accessible to veterans, so that they can, first of all, find it, and then when they find it, they can easily use it in making decisions about their health care. [ Background Music ] [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Thanks for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple podcasts. [Background Music] [ Jacques Arsenault: ] For more from the Congressional Watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at GAO.gov.