Expanding Connected Care

Expanding connected care options for Veterans, VA will leverage telehealth and digital technologies to enhance the accessibility, capacity, quality, choice and experience of VA health care for Veterans, their families, and their caregivers anywhere in the United States, including its territories, its possessions, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

By September 30, 2023, VA will:

• Develop new survey questions to assess Veterans’ experience with their access to VA telehealth services and establish baseline data
• Increase use of TeleUrgent Care and targeted TeleSpecialty Care Services by over 5%
• Increase use of patient generated health data by over 5%

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Access: Improving Trust of Underserved Veteran Populations

VA will measure, report and improve the trust of underserved Veterans, such as women, Veterans of color, and LGBTQ+ Veterans. Through this data and human-centered design insights, VA will drive improvements to the experiences of underserved populations served by VA.

By September 30, 2023, Veterans Experience scores related to underserved populations will increase by 3% over a FY 2022 baseline, with an aspirational goal of 90%.

Rural Health Workforce

VA will improve rural healthcare workforce staffing levels which impacts the care VA delivers to rural Veterans including American Indian and Alaska Native Veterans.

By September 30, 2023, VA will ensure 90% of rural dwelling Veterans are satisfied with their access to healthcare when and where they need it.

Suicide Prevention

VA is meaningfully contributing to whole of government and community-based efforts to target an overall 10% reduction in Veteran suicide rate from 2019 to 2024, with decreases in the long term of 3% annually by 2028, through enhancement of programs and training focused on community interventions. To help achieve this, VA will concentrate on non-VA providers who often lack training on specific suicide reduction tools for Veterans.

By September 30, 2023, the VA will:

• Provide opportunities to Community care network (CCN) providers for training in suicide risk identification, lethal means safety (LMS) and safety planning. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) will offer trainings to 100% of the CCN providers who are signed-up for VHA communication and take actions to achieve an increase of 10% in FY23 over FY22 baseline training completions.
• Achieve a 10-fold increase in the number of community providers, including but beyond the CCN, who have completed lethal means safety training within localized suicide hotspots identified, using CDC and VA provisional data.
• Increase by 100%, gun lock distribution to community-based providers.

Caregiver Support

VA is currently undertaking a broad programmatic review of the Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers (PCAFC) to ensure it achieves intended outcomes for all new and Legacy Participants and Legacy Applicants. While this review is underway, VA’s Caregiver Support Program (CSP) will continue to enhance and expand services to Family Caregivers of Veterans, including increasing access for those not currently served by PCAFC; expanding access to the Program of General Caregiver Support Services (PGCSS); and improving the experience of both Veterans and their Family Caregivers as they access these supports and services.

By September 30, 2023, CSP pledges to focus on the implementation of the following three outcomes:

• Implement Phase II Expansion of PCAFC which will provide access to Veterans of all eras and their Family Caregivers
• Increase participation in PGCSS to ensure Family Caregivers of all Veterans enrolled in VA’s health care system have access to supportive services and caregiver resources
• Implement a caregiver survey inclusive of PGCSS and PCAFC participants and establish a baseline that can be used to inform continual improvement activities