The Hampton VA Medical Center is reducing appointment wait times for its primary care patients, but Sen. Mark R. Warner said Friday he wants to see more improvement.
“I’m still disappointed,” he said.
In December, patients seeking primary care in the Hampton region endured the longest wait times in the nation, according to data from the Department of Veterans Affairs. That top number of 30.53 days has been whittled down to about 23 days, Warner said. The number represents a weighted average for the medical center and its two clinics in Virginia Beach and Elizabeth City, N.C.
But that still leaves Hampton in the bottom tier.
“We’ve made progress, but there’s more to go,” he said. “It’s great news that we’re moving … to 23 days, but the national average is 10 days.”
Michael Dunfee, the center’s director, acknowledged the need for improvement and said he expects the drop in wait times to continue.
The medical center has converted administrative space into exam rooms, and it recently hired 10 more health-care providers: four physicians, three nurse practitioners and three physician assistants. More applicants are coming in for interviews.
Hampton will open a new outpatient clinic in Chesapeake later this year, which will save veterans in South Hampton Roads a trip to the Peninsula. It will be located at 1987 S. Military Highway and will mirror the clinic that now operates in Virginia Beach, essentially doubling access to care in South Hampton Roads.
A larger medical center for South Hampton Roads is on the drawing board, but that is still several years down the road.
Moving forward, Warner said he hoped the Hampton VA can forge closer ties with the Virginia congressional delegation. Last month, the four House representatives from Hampton Roads wrote to Dunfee expressing frustration at a lack of communication between the hospital and congressional staff. Veterans often seek out their congressmen to solve or mediate complaints, and the congressmen said they weren’t getting answers from Hampton.
Warner didn’t sign that letter, but the problem sounded familiar.
“We had that same problem,” he said. “We were told at one point there were no outstanding cases. Within 24 hours, we showed we had 11 outstanding cases. Those cases got solved, but the facility should work closer with the delegation. We’re their allies.”
The problems aside, Warner also said he knows “an awful lot of folks who work at this hospital … do great work. We can’t forget the kind of commitment and sacrifice that these employees make. But I also hear sometimes (about) folks that get put on hold too long or aren’t treated with respect.”
Meanwhile, Warner said national VA officials are finally starting to consider the results of a study performed by the Northern Virginia Technology Council that looked at scheduling systems and practices.
The senator, himself a former tech businessman from Northern Virginia, pushed for the council to get involved, and the group did the study for free. Its members spent six weeks examining data, and they visited the Hampton VA, as well as the VA medical center in Richmond.
The report made 39 recommendations that could be applied across the national VA system. Those include technology improvements, changes to administrative procedures and facility upgrades. The process of scheduling exams lacks the best technology and standard operating procedures that are consistently applied, the report found.
“This situation has resulted in a counterproductive and error-prone working environment that has frustrated staff members for years, thus fueling a persistent staff retention problem,” the report states.
The report also recommends aggressive changes new-employee recruiting.
“The hiring of needed staff proceeds too slowly,” it states. “The causes are complex, but much of the delay can be traced to redundant, inconsistent and inefficient hiring processes. There should be a system-wide focus on improving these processes as soon as possible.”
Warner was frustrated it has taken seven months for VA officials to recognize the council’s work, although “those conversations have started.”
“I’m not satisfied they are doing that quick enough, and I expect to hear more from the national VA next week,” he said.
The technology council echoed the senator in one respect: that many people at Hampton are doing their best.
Those who work on scheduling appointments “work quite hard — indeed, much harder than should ever be necessary — in their creative efforts to compensate” for all the areas where improvements are needed, the report states.
Earlier in the day, Warner visited the Daily Press Editorial Board, to talk about two new — but still unformed — policy initiatives he’d like to pursue.
One is for the millennials now in what some are calling the gig economy — making a living by patching together freelance jobs and part-time work. Warner’s worried that they’re missing out on some of the programs, such as unemployment insurance and retirement savings, that his generation has counted on as part of a safety net with traditional employment.
The other is to try to do something about the short-sightedness that afflicts much American business — the focus on how the next quarter looks instead of on investing for the long term, especially in research and technology. Warner is thinking tax policy and maybe legislation allowing new types of corporate structures might help.
It’s still early days, and he’s still thinking about concrete proposals, he said.
Warner is also still hoping he and others can get legislators from both parties to agree on a package of linked cuts to federal entitlement programs and reforms to boost the revenue Washington collects.
He said he’s got ideas of his own there, too — and hopes to float some in the next six weeks or so.
Reporter Dave Ress contributed to this story.
Lessig can be reached by phone at 757-247-7821.
