The Senate confirmation hearing on the nomination of Robert McDonald, the former CEO of Procter & Gamble, to become Secretary of Veterans Affairs is scheduled for July 22.
Sloan Gibson, the former CEO of the USO and the former chairman of AmSouth Bancorporation who is currently serving as Acting Secretary, acknowledged at a Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing the other day that current investigations into the Veterans Administration have revealed "data integrity" problems.
Aside from the other integrity problems, of course.
Manipulation of medical appointment lists, neglect of patients, retaliation against whistleblowers, and failing to punish wrongdoing are the current biggies but with Gibson's disclosure, who knows? When you can't trust the data that implies you cannot trust those who assemble and construct the data. Those who are trying to address the problem [unlike the Internal Revenue Service scandal, this appears to be a sincere effort] are still trying to get a grasp on what has happened.
That's the complicated part. The "easy" part is the first stage of any crisis: Stop the bleeding. Control the situation. Mitigate further damage.
The administration has requested additional funds so veterans who have been victimized by the backlog can go to private doctors. That's an external solution and it has much in its favor. A internal solution should also be sought by determining whether the current VA doctors are handling their caseload in a manner which is competitive with the private sector. In other words, can more be obtained from current VA resources so the needs of patients can be more promptly addressed? If their caseload is considerably less than their peers in the private sector, there should be questions of "Why?" and "What can be done to correct that immediately?"
As the investigations proceed, the new executive team at Veterans Affairs should be sensitive to the macro-question of whether the Veterans Administration has too broad a pool of patients. Perhaps its focus should be narrowed to service-related injuries. Find a niche and do it very well. I suspect we'll be hearing much more about that option in the days ahead.
The initial step, however, is to tap internal and external resources to stop the bleeding and stop it fast.
The VA executive team is currently in Crisis Management 101 mode. I have no doubt that everything in this post is being done or contemplated. Future posts will address the intangible and far more difficult issue of how to reverse the VA's dysfunctional culture; a challenge which makes providing additional medical care look easy.
I'll also be posting on the benign but baffling cultural issues which a former head of Procter & Gamble is likely find in a government agency. We can safely bet that Sloan Gibson has already encountered his own. It would be fun to be in the room when Mr. Gibson briefs Mr. McDonald.
"Robert, get ready for some culture shock."
No comments:
Post a Comment