Organizational Development at the VA

Organizational Development at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been a cabinet-level agency since 1989 that is tasked with providing an array of services to eligible veterans and their families (VA fact sheet, 2016). In recent years, the VA has experienced a number of organizational development-related problems including most especially delays in patient scheduling that demand viable solutions. To this end, this paper provides an overview of the VA and a description of an intervention project that can help this organization overcome its current constraints to the provision of high-quality administrative and healthcare services to the nation's veterans and their families. Finally, the paper concludes with a description of who would be contacted at the VA by an external organizational development (OD) consultant to coordinate a contract to address these problems.

Background information on the organization

At present, with nearly 280,000 workers on the rolls, the VA has more employees than any other government agency except the Department of Defense (VA fact sheet, 2016). While the VA is tasked with providing a wide range of services to veterans and their families, the most visible part of the VA is the Department of Health Services (DHS) that provides healthcare services to 5.5 million veteran patients each year (VA fact sheet, 2016). In addition, the DHS trains about 90,000 new physicians each year and is the largest healthcare service in the United States today (VA fact sheet, 2016).

The problem(s) the selected organization faces

Beyond the high-profile cover-ups perpetrated by high-placed VA officials, there have been numerous delays in scheduling veterans for healthcare appointments in recent years that are believed responsible for causing hundreds of veteran deaths (VA fast facts, 2015). Complicating the problem is the growth in the number of patients who are eligible for VA health care due to two shooting wars and others on the horizon. In sum, these problems are already severe and current signs indicate they will get worse before they get better. The three most recent salient examples of these problems include the following:

1. December 15, 2014: The VA Inspector General releases a report that indicates a VA fact sheet contained misleading information, overstating the scope of its review of unresolved cases;

2. March 10, 2015: More than 1,600 veterans waited between 60 and 90 days for appointments at facilities operated by the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System and about 400 veterans waited 6 months for an appointment with an average wait time of 48 days;

3. September 2, 2015: The VA Inspector General releases a review of alleged mismanagement at the VA's Health Eligibility Center (VA fast facts, 2015, para. 5).

While other healthcare organizations also experience scheduling delays from time to time, it is clear that the causes of these problems include the fact that the VA has more patients than it can handle and pressure is being placed on VA officials to provide more healthcare services than is feasible.