The Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System clinic located at 177 Sawtooth Oak St. in Hot Springs was among those flagged for further review and investigation by the nationwide Access Audit.
The purpose of the audit, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' VA Access Audit & Wait Times Fact Sheet, was to "ensure a full understanding of VA's policy among scheduling staff, identify any inappropriate scheduling practices used by employees regarding veteran preferences for appointment dates, and review waiting list management."
The audit covered a total of 731 separate points of access, and involved more than 3,772 interviews of clinical and administrative staff involved in the scheduling process at VA medical centers, large community based outpatient clinics serving at least 10,000 veterans, and a sampling of smaller clinics.
Miles Brown, CAVHS public affairs officer, said Wednesday that the audit took place over a three- to four-week period. During the initial audit, the VA identified some facilities that it wanted to revisit and do follow-up reviews.
Out of the more than 700 reviews done nationwide, 122 facilities were identified for a follow-up or an additional review.
"We don't really know the details of what caused one facility to be selected for an additional review over another," Brown said.
In Arkansas, the initial reviews were done at the two main VA facilities in Little Rock and North Little Rock, and at seven of its eight community-based outpatient clinics, including the one in Hot Springs, he said.
"We found out at the same time as everybody else did that Hot Springs was identified for one of those follow-up reviews. We don't know when that will take place, or what it will entail," Brown said.
Brown said the clinic is still operating as normally.
"This whole review was centered around access to care, and the scheduling process. When they did these reviews, it was talking to schedulers, and supervisors, about how veterans get access to care. They had a very specific list," he said.
According to a copy of the VA Access Audit Findings Report, a total of 3,772 interviews were conducted with VA medical center and community-based outpatient clinic staff members nationwide.
The interviews were conducted in private, and no names of interviewees were recorded with questionnaire data.
Questions about undesirable practices included "Do you track appointment requests in places other than the VISTA (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) scheduling system or EWL (Electronic Wait List)?"
According to the findings, nationwide 13 percent of schedulers indicated they received instruction to enter a desired date other than the date a veteran asked to be seen.
"We didn't pick the schedulers. We gave them a list of employees that do scheduling, and they selected, at random, who they wanted to speak with and who they wanted to do interviews with," Brown said.
The Hot Springs clinic is staffed by VA personnel and is part of the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System.
Brown said the clinic serves about 5,000 veterans in the greater Hot Springs area, a service area that extends outward up to 30 miles from the clinic itself.
"They could have come from farther, but generally speaking they live within 30 miles of the clinic," he said.
When the additional review is scheduled, Brown said "we will cooperate with them fully and any recommendations that they make, or any suggestions or changes, obviously we are going to implement those."
"We're all about making the health care system better. We want to provide exceptional health care to the veterans we serve. And so, if they come up with a better way to slice the apple, we're going to do it."
Local on 06/12/2014