#Middlebury #Veterans
The Department of Veterans Affairs has trained 8,300 employees to serve as patient advocates. The Patient Advocate Tracking System Replacement (PATS-R) program is now up and running in all facilities around the country. It replaces the old Patient Representative System that had patient reps with limited powers. What this new, more hands-on system offers veterans is more immediate care and sometimes immediate answers.
In the past, either you or someone on your medical team would speak to your advocate, who would research the problem, sending emails to the various departments involved. Eventually an answer would come back.
Now, after a lot of research into what is really needed, you’ll talk to one of the 8,300 medical staff who have been trained to get a faster resolution to your problem. Even better, this advocate can often solve your problem right then and there, without even asking anyone else.
And it’s not just your individual issue that gets noticed. The PATS-R program will track and spot problems that are reported by others at any medical facility. If there’s a trend at your facility or any other in the country, it will get attention across all the departments in all facilities. If you want to give a big thumbs-up to someone on the medical staff or about an experience you’ve had, that will be noticed as well.
The PATS-R program is one of the VA secretary’s priorities. The others are implementing the MISSION Act; hooking the VA up to civilian health care providers and pharmacies, as well as making timely payments to those; improving hiring, IT, procurement and financial transactions; and suicide prevention.
To keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on at VA, watch its blog: www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage. Put any topic of interest in the search box and there’s sure to be a blog about it.
© 2020 King Features Synd. Inc.
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