Jeff Robbins, LiveData, Inc.

The goal of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is to improve access to timely, high-quality health care for Veterans. To achieve this goal, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has established initiatives to increase access to care, improve surgical safety and quality, and improve operating room efficiency.

These initiatives include measuring and tracking key performance indicators such as same-day surgery cancellations, first case on-time starts, block utilization, 30-day readmissions, and surgical safety compliance. While implementing tracking at the national scale can be daunting, the VHA has been on the leading edge of healthcare delivery in several areas, including the development and use of health information technology, and was ready to meet this challenge. Read more.