About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

HRD-85-15 1 (1984-12-07)

handle is hein.gao/gaobabnoa0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 1 &-.0 r0 UNITED STATES GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE WASHINGTON, D.C. 20548 HUMAN R ZrIIKUR 9 HUMASIN DECEMBER 7. 1984 B-217110 The Honorable Harry N. Walters 125784 Administrator of Veterans Affairs Dear Mr. Walters: Subject: VA Needs a Systematic Approach to Assess the Management of Its Outpatient Clinics (GAO/HRD-85-15) The Veterans Administration's (VA's) July 1984 report on caring for older veterans stated that VA would need to expand its capacity to provide outpatient care services from a pro- jected 19 million visits in 1985 to between 26 and 33 million visits by the year 2000. By increasing the efficiency of its outpatient clinics, VA could treat more patients with available resources without adversely affecting the quality of care. We reviewed the management of 15 VA outpatient clinics to determine the extent to which Department of Medicine and Surgery (DM&S) officials had established performance standards, col- lected needed data, and provided the incentives necessary to assess the efficiency of individual clinics. The data we col- lected at the 15 clinics (as shown on p. 13 of enc. I) indicate wide variations in performance and large deviations from DM&S standards. For example, DM&S expects that its clinics should provide for 500 visits annually for each full-time equivalent staff member. Visits per full-time equivalent at the 15 clinics ranged from 315 to 1,060. Although these variations and devia- tions do not conclusively indicate a clinic's efficiency, they could enable DM&S managers to identify clinics needing more analysis. We found that (1) although DM&S had standards by which the performance of its outpatient clinics was to be assessed, clinic managers viewed these standards as outdated, simplistic, and too lenient to use for measuring their clinics' efficiency; (2) although DM&S routinely gathered and reported data on clinic (401925) Q3O74'~

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most