Everyone deserves to reach their full health potential. But they can’t do that without health care equity.
At VA, we’ve promised Veterans that we’ll provide quality health care and treatment regardless of gender, race or ethnicity, location, or socioeconomic status. With a VA career, you can play an important role in helping us make sure that all Veterans receive the care they need.
Creating better outcomes
To see equitable health care at work, take a look at our cancer care treatment outcomes.
Cancer impacts every race and ethnicity, but its effects can be amplified in certain groups due to long-standing social and economic prejudices and unfair biases, also known as structural inequalities.
Every year, we treat hundreds of thousands of Veterans of all ethnic backgrounds, geographic locations, genders and physical abilities for cancer. The minority communities within VA are deeply valued members of the Veteran population, and we actively work to promote and ensure equity.
As a result, one study found that Veterans typically have significantly better outcomes.
Careers crossing distances
We’re also rising to the challenge of delivering equitable health care in rural areas of our country. As part of its mission to improve the equity for rural Veterans, VA’s Office of Rural Health has developed targeted initiatives to improve the recruitment and retention of rural health care providers and researchers.
These programs strive to increase the number of providers in rural communities, research ways to improve future delivery and quality of care and create pathways for rural providers to become leading innovators in their field.
This is just the beginning of the solution to tackle the longer term problem of rural health care shortages and improve the delivery of quality health care to the Veterans who call rural communities home.
A continuing commitment
All Veterans are unique, and we know that health care is not one-size-fits-all. Diversity in our personnel helps bridge the gap in health care disparities, an attitude that has been adopted at the very top of our organization.
“To ensure a welcoming environment for Veterans, we must foster fair and inclusive VA workplaces where the experiences and perspectives of our diverse employees are valued,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough in March 2021. “The success of our mission depends on everyone being able to contribute their expertise, experience, talents, ideas and perspectives.”
“At the heart of serving a diverse group of Veterans is a diverse VA workforce,” explained Dr. Patricia Hayes, chief officer for VA Women’s Health. “Our providers and staff are racially and ethnically diverse. We’re integrating best practices of diversity, equity and inclusion into all that we do to expand access to our world-class health care services and improving policies and procedures to reflect the diversity of those we serve.”
As we serve the most diverse group of Veterans in history, we reaffirm our commitment to hiring staff that reflects that diversity, ensuring that employees feel supported as they provide equitable health care to all who come through our doors.
Work at VA
With a career at VA, you’ll join an organization committed to providing health care equity to our diverse Veteran population and supporting inclusion for both staff and patients.
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