Operation Just Cause... ...for as long as it takes
Sent in by Veterans News and Information Services
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Testifying at a VA Subcommittee on Health hearing, the VA agreed today with General Accounting Office (GAO) criticisms that the agency's capital asset planning process lacks both needed leadership involvement and objective decision-making criteria.
VA's top physician for policy and management, Dr. Frances Murphy, abandoned prepared remarks and conceded to Chairman Cliff Stearns that VA's proposed policy for restructuring obsolete facilities was materially flawed.
Stearns chided VA for its lack of progress since March 1999 when GAO warned the Subcommittee that VA could waste billions over the next five years by continuing to operate unneeded buildings. Steve Backhus, the director of GAO's veterans affairs branch, today reiterated that VA could improve veterans' care if it reduced spending on underused, obsolete buildings and reinvested the savings in modern facilities. GAO advised the Subcommittee that VA may now be spending even more than one of every four medical care dollars on building operation and maintenance.
Citing lack of progress over the past 13 months, Stearns said, "VA is back at square one after spending more than $1 million identifying and rejecting options for veterans' care in Chicago. More money has been set aside to contract for realignment studies in other parts of the country. But not only are those studies on hold, even a promised policy statement to guide the planning process is still incomplete."
Stearns pressed VA to develop and adopt objective, measurable criteria for formulating and evaluating options for facility mission changes and restructuring. GAO testified that VA's reliance on a largely subjective process in studying possible hospital closure and restructuring in Chicago led to widely-rejected recommendations which senior management has disowned. Representatives of veterans service organizations called for objective evaluation criteria to use in assuring that difficult decisions about VA hospitals serve veterans' best interests. Stearns also requested within 30 days a report listing the objectives that would be used to determine if a facility should be shut down or not.
While expressing satisfaction at VA's acceptance of GAO's recommendations, Stearns stated, "It remains unclear - with so much at stake - why it takes a congressional hearing to bring focus and acknowledgement at VA that subjective decision making is unacceptable, and a rigorous, credible approach is needed."
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