The VA's Metrics Process is Killing Veterans... And Only The Veteran Community Can Stop It

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Image: Reuters/File
At the VA hospital in Roseburg, Oregon, elderly Veterans are being told to go home unless they are willing to be listed as hospice patients. Vietnam Veterans with heart trouble are being listed by their masking symptoms if their real condition - like anything related to Agent Orange - is considered "too complex." According to Congressman Peter DeFazio and backed by analysis at the Government Accountability Office, nothing short of a crisis is occurring at this hospital. 

For every metric, like occupied beds or treatment options or wait times, there seemed to be a work-around. While these are normal, objective numbers for any hospital to measure, when they are attached to success ratings (and likely a shared federal budget) they can become targets for manipulation. And in this case, manipulation is killing our Veterans. It's easy to hide; in Roseburg, they hid it for years.

But the worst part is the reason for this crisis is the desire of the hospital administration to improve their internal performance ratings, ratings which are based on the 110 individual metrics VA uses nationwide to rate all their facilities. That means if this is happening in Roseburg, it could be happening everywhere.

So what can VA do about this? And what can we do as Veterans and citizens to protect ourselves as we seek treatment?

It is for situations like this that we built Pathfinder.vet. We need an independent way for Veterans -and their Families and Caregivers - to give a voice to the experience and have it measured and shared. Because what VA doesn't measure in their 110 metrics is the actual experience of a Veteran seeking treatment, why they are turned away, or how they are treated. Without quantifying the impact of treatment (Was it effective? Was it personable? Did it even occur?), and without the ability to share the story of the Veteran, we now see that Veterans suffer.

While VA launched a patient experience initiative and is making great strides, this is still in infancy. Advanced analysis of experiences is still well beyond the system, and not measurable. Until VA ratings are independent - therefore unable to be manipulated internally - and patient experience is considered at the highest levels, we will continue to see crises on the level of Roseburg.

We must help each other. Review experiences anonymously for your visits to the emergency room or primary care, specialty care or in-patient. Add your local hospital if it isn't listed. Tell others in your community so they know what choices they can make in their care. Those of us at Pathfinder.vet will do the heavy lifting on the analysis side, take your experiences and turn them into numbers and objective metrics through our advanced algorithms, and do our part to get it seen by those who can make changes in your healthcare, but the community needs you to stop this crisis of manipulation.

It's up to us to stop this. Get your voice heard. It matters.