“The Department of Veterans Affairs is increasing funding to various veterans health care and support programs slated to be implemented throughout 2021 and 2022.”
“As part of the VA’s focus on advanced medical care, the agency has allocated an additional $882 million toward medical and prosthetic research — an 11% annual increase that represents one of the VA’s most substantial year-over-year gains.”
“’These additional funds are going to be targeted to a number of areas, but the top three that I am thinking of are traumatic brain injury research, toxic exposure research and coronavirus research,’ said VA Assistant Secretary for Management and Chief Financial Officer Jon Rychalski in a call with reporters.”
“This research push is being accompanied by increased funding for both IT and infrastructure modernization over the coming months, with VA pairing additional resources for its digital modernization push and the ongoing renovation of agency care centers.”
“’We’re going to take IT funding up to $5.5 billion, which is a 13% increase over 2021,’ Rychalski said.”
“The allocation of funding toward renovation and new construction will coincide with that provided separately under the American Jobs Plan, likely amounting to a considerable push for facilities modernization across the entirety of the VA network…”
“The VA is also committing funds to continue building out capacities that were rapidly deployed in response to the pandemic, including continuing investment in refining and expanding the availability of telehealth services.”
“’One of the most notable is probably telehealth … we’ve seen for veterans who have a hard time getting into a facility, they see no-show rates go down and satisfaction go up pretty dramatically. Obviously this is a program that’s going to endure, and we’re going to make a continued investment in that,’ Rychalski said…” Read the full article here.
Source: What VA’s Boosts in Health Care Funding Mean for IT – By Adam Patterson, June 3, 2021. GovernmentCIO.
