WASHINGTON — Citing the need to provide America’s veterans with the best services available, the top physician in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) defended the Department’s decision more than two years ago to reject a flawed veterans’ tracking system.
“Our vision is to create a continuous clinical record of transfers and case management for all seriously injured patients as they progress though both Department of Defense and VA systems of care,” said Dr. Michael J. Kussman, VA’s Acting Under Secretary for Health.
In testimony March 8 before the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Kussman noted that the arm of VA that administers financial payments such as disability compensation, home loan guarantees and educational assistance developed a database in 2003 to track the benefits of seriously injured service members as they move from the military and into VA.
“The VA employees who worked on the database hoped that it could evolve to meet our health care management needs as well,” Kussman said. “Unfortunately, it could not. Our Department decided to consider other ways to accomplish that tracking.”
Kussman noted VA created a database tailored to the task of tracking people as they move between the health care systems operated by DoD and VA. The two departments are collaborating to create “a much better tool.”
“Contrary to what was erroneously reported, the decision to use a database — which we felt better met our needs — was appropriately made at an administrative level. The Secretary was not made aware of the administrative decision,” Kussman concluded.
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