Veterans
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- Written by: Department of Veterans Affairs
“Caregivers make tremendous sacrifices to address the daily needs of veterans who served our nation,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “These mothers, wives, fathers, husbands and other loved ones deserve our recognition and support for all they do to care for veterans.”
Caregivers provide a valuable service to veterans by assisting them beyond the walls of VA medical facilities with much-needed support, such as accessing the health care system, providing emotional and physical support and enabling many injured veterans to stay in their homes, rather than living their lives in an institutional setting.
The recent passage of the VA MISSION Act of 2018 will expand eligibility for VA’s Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers to veterans of all eras of service – fulfilling President Trump’s commitment to help veterans and their families live healthy and fulfilling lives.
The expansion will occur in two phases, starting with eligible veterans who incurred or aggravated a serious injury in the line of duty on or before May 7, 1975, with further expansion to follow.
Currently, VA is developing an implementation plan for the MISSION Act and encourages all caregivers and veterans to learn about the Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers, as well as the many additional resources already available to all caregivers by visiting http://www.caregiver.va.gov or by calling the Caregiver Support Line toll free at 855-260-3274.
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- Written by: Mendocino College
The resource fair will feature college departments and local agencies that support veterans and their families.
Participants will include the Employment Development Department, VA Outpatient Clinic, Mendocino County Veterans Services, North Bay Veteran Resource Center, Wreaths Across America, the Mendocino College Disability Resource and Native American Resource Centers, and more.
The Veteran Resource Center, located in room 735 of the Lowery Student Center, will be open throughout the day on Nov. 8, and all are encouraged to visit the center to learn more about available services and enjoy free coffee and sweet treats.
The free lunch will be served from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and will be catered by the Mendocino College Culinary Arts department.
For more information about this event please contact Anastasia Simpson-Logg at 707-468-3102.
The Mendocino College Admissions and Records office and the Veteran Resource Center will again be hosting Heroes’ Trees Nov. 1 through 30. Trees will be available in the lobby outside of Admissions and Records and in the Lowery Student Center outside of the Veteran Resource Center.
This project provides an opportunity to honor veterans by creating a remembrance ornament which shares a photograph or story of a veteran and is displayed on a tree throughout the month of November. All are welcome to create an ornament and place it on a tree.
Supplies for this purpose will be available at Admissions and Records and the Veteran Resource Center and a table with supplies will be available during the Veterans Day Resource Fair. To learn more about this project, please visit: http://www.ourheroestree.com/welcome/.
The Mendocino College Ukiah campus is located at 1000 Hensley Creek Road.
For more information about this event, contact Marianna Cooper at 707-468-3104. For information on other campus events please visit www.mendocino.edu .
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- Written by: Department of Veterans Affairs
MSEP is a career program connecting military spouses with more than 390 affiliated employers who have committed to recruit, hire, promote and retain military spouses in portable careers.
“By developing skills, knowledge, and abilities that can be used in high-demand industry sectors, military spouses – especially those who face frequent relocations – can achieve employment continuity and increased opportunities for upward career mobility,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “BVA is committed to delivering better services to veterans and their families, and we understand that military spouses offer unique perspectives that can help us deliver on our promise to care for veterans.”
The board’s mission is to conduct hearings and decide appeals properly and in a timely manner.
The MSEP is part of the DOD’s broader Spouse Education and Career Opportunities, or SECO, program, which seeks to reduce the 23 percent unemployment rate experienced by military spouses and 25 percent wage gap experienced by military wives.
SECO provides education and career guidance to military spouses worldwide and offers free, comprehensive resources and tools related to career exploration; education; training and licensing; employment readiness; and career connections. SECO also offers free career-coaching services six days a week.
To learn more about SECO, visit Military OneSource or call 800-342-9647 to speak to a SECO career coach.
For more information on the MSEP and the 350,327 active job postings for military spouses, visit https://msepjobs.militaryonesource.mil .
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- Written by: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
“The team at the DMC has enhanced services to our Veterans,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “It’s our mission to take care of our veterans, no matter what their needs are. DMC is in concert with our priority of improving customer service and will continue to gather customer feedback through direct feedback, surveys and outreach in FY19 to further enhance the veterans’ experience.”
For the past three years, DMC received around 1 million calls annually with an average call wait time of about 21 minutes. In FY 2017, DMC launched a series of internal efficiencies and process improvements to enhance contact center capabilities.
Initiatives included enhancing staffing levels to meet demand, enhancing contact center technology, focusing on employee development and engagement, and implementing an automated 12-month payment plan.
These veteran-focused initiatives represent a 79 percent reduction over two years to the average time for waiting and a 40 percent increase of actual calls taken. These are all indicators of successful initiatives providing a better experience for veterans and VA employees.
The DMC’s inbound contact center serves as the central point for veterans and their family members to make payment arrangements, or receive guidance regarding the collection process on overpayments which could include debts created from education or pension payments.
Debt counselors at the DMC work with callers in a professional and service-oriented manner to help them understand their options to address overpayments with veterans either through extended repayment plans, the dispute process, compromise process or waiver process
DMC’s contact center provides debt counseling for the Veterans Benefits Administration, and consolidated collection services of non-health care debt for Veterans Health Administration and National Cemetery Administration, enabling these entities to focus resources on accomplishing their core missions.
DMC has provided centralized debt collection programs of veteran benefit overpayments since 1975 and became a fee-for-service Enterprise Center in 1996.
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- Written by: Department of Veterans Affairs
Signed by Defense Secretary James N. Mattis and VA Secretary Robert Wilkie, the joint statement reinforces both departments’ commitment to ensuring the successful transition from a legacy patient-data system to a modernized one that will continue to support active-duty service members, veterans and their families.
“The joint statement between DOD and VA represents tangible evidence of our commitment to change how we deliver veteran-focused, provider-friendly care,” Wilkie said. “The new EHR system will be interoperable with DOD, while also improving VA’s ability to collaborate and share information with community care providers. This will ease the burden on service members as they transition from military careers and will be supported by multiple medical providers throughout their lives.”
VA signed a contract with Cerner Corp. May 17 to replace VA’s 40-year-old legacy Veterans Integrated System Technology Architecture (VistA) health care records technology over the next 10 years with the new Cerner system, which is in the pilot phase at DOD.
Collaborating with DOD will ensure that VA: understands the challenges encountered as DOD deploys its EHR system called Military Health System GENESIS (MHS GENESIS); adapts an approach by applying lessons learned to anticipate and mitigate known issues; assesses prospective efficiencies to help deploy faster; and delivers an EHR that is fully interoperable.
"We are committed to partnering with the VA to support the lifetime care of our service members, Veterans and their families," Mattis said. "This modern electronic health record will ensure those who serve our nation have quality health care as they transition from service member to Veteran."
“The EHR will give health care providers a full picture of patient medical history, driving better clinical outcomes,” Wilkie said. “It will also help us identify veterans proactively who are at higher risk for issues, such as opioid addiction and suicide, so health care providers can intervene earlier and save lives.”
For more information about VA’s Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization, go to www.ehrm.va.gov.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Lt. Col. Nehring, 44, of Fresno, died Oct. 16 in a training flight crash in the Khmelnytskyi region of Ukraine.
He was deployed to Ukraine to support a joint and multinational exercise known as Clear Sky 2018. He was a member of the 194th Fighter Squadron, 144th Fighter Wing, California Air National Guard, based in Fresno.
In memorial, Gov. Brown ordered that flags be flown at half-staff over the State Capitol. Lt. Col. Nehring's family will receive a letter of condolence from the governor.
The governor and first lady extend their deepest condolences to his family and friends at this difficult time.
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- Written by: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
“Bringing on additional judges means the board will be better staffed to conduct hearings and decide appeals properly in a timely manner,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “Combined with procedural changes under the Appeals Modernization and Improvement Act of 2017 [AMA] and the hiring of more than 200 additional Board attorneys, this translates into better and faster service for Veterans.”
Veterans law judges are presidential appointees and go through a thorough vetting process. After an initial screening, the chairman of the board recommends a list of candidates to the Secretary of the VA. If agreed to, the list of selectees is forwarded to the White House for final approval. Once approved, the selectees are notified by the chairman and officially sworn in.
The following veterans law judges will assume their roles Oct. 14, and will begin holding hearings and signing decisions for Veterans and other appellants: Lauren Cryan, Evan Deichert, William Donnelly and Cynthia Skow.
In fiscal year 2018, the board issued a historic 85,288 decisions to veterans – 61.6 percent more than 2017. Expanding the roster of veterans law judges will allow the board to continue issuing more decisions for veterans, as VA prepares for full implementation of the AMA.
This law transforms a complex appeals process into one that is simplified, timely and transparent by providing veterans with increased choice and control. The AMA will go into effect on Feb. 14.
For more information about the board and its progress on appeals modernization, visit https://www.bva.va.gov.
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- Written by: Department of Veterans Affairs
The Veterans Coordinated Approach to Recovery and Employment (Veterans CARE) project was launched Oct. 3 by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the City of Boston, New York City partners and the nonprofit organization Social Finance, which stemmed from VA’s grant award to the organization, and will serve 480 veterans over three years in New York City; Boston and Brockton, Massachusetts; and Central and Western Massachusetts.
“This project demonstrates that supporting veterans depends on networks of collaborative partnerships, as well as great research and innovative ideas,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “Research and innovation are fundamental to improving the health care and benefits for our nation’s Veterans.”
According to research, PTSD interferes with a person’s ability to thrive in the workforce, and has been found to impact sustained employment and income negatively. In addition, a negative cycle exists between unemployment and PTSD – persistent unemployment often is linked to negative health conditions, including depression, which can exacerbate PTSD symptoms.
Further, VA research noted that up to 20 percent of veterans from recent tours of duty have PTSD, and a 2015 analysis found that veterans’ labor force participation had declined over the previous 35 years, in close correlation with a growth in service-connected disability.
The Veterans CARE project will involve local VA medical centers to deliver Individual Placement and Support (IPS), an evidence-based approach to supported employment, to program participants. The Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center (TVAMC) will oversee and monitor the project.
“The Veterans CARE project will take our work from the research arena into real-world settings where we plan to achieve the highest level of impact of IPS at full scale,” said Veterans CARE Study Chair Dr. Lori Davis. “Sustained meaningful work is a key part of the recovery plan for Veterans living with PTSD.”
Pay for Success is a public finance model that harnesses the power of the capital markets to address critical social and environmental challenges and improve the lives of those in need. In this Pay for Success project, BNP Paribas, Northern Trust, The Dakota Foundation, Deutsche Bank and Robin Hood Foundation provided $5.1 million in impact capital to fund the project.
“We are excited to launch the first Pay for Success project globally to support veterans, who have served our nation so honorably,” said Tracy Palandjian, CEO and co-founder of Social Finance. “The Veterans CARE project is about bringing the public, private and social sectors together to help Veterans with PTSD secure meaningful employment and lead healthier, happier lives.”
VA’s Center for Innovation and the Corporation for National and Community Service’s Social Innovation Fund are providing $3 million, which is matched by local government partners, to repay project investors if the project achieves measurable results for veterans.
For more information about the Veterans CARE project, including additional quotes from project partners and a fact sheet, go to http://socialfinance.org/focus-areas/workforce/veterans-care-project/.
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- Written by: Department of Veterans Affairs
“With closer monitoring and increased medical center leadership and support we have seen solid improvements at most of our facilities,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “Even our highest performing facilities are getting better, and that is driving up our quality standards across the country.”
The Star rating designation is designed to help VA identify best practices of its top performing hospitals and share them across VA’s health care system to achieve system-wide improvements.
Compared with data from the same period a year ago, the release of VA’s Strategic Analytics for Improvement and Learning (SAIL) report shows 66 percent of VA Medical Centers (VAMCs) have improved in overall quality in the third quarter – with the largest gains seen in areas where there were VA-wide improvement initiatives, such as mortality, length of stay and avoidable adverse events.
Six VAMCs experienced a decrease in quality, and improvement activities are under way at each of these facilities.
Additionally, of the medical centers placed under the Strategic Action for Transformation program (StAT), an initiative that monitors high-risk medical centers and mobilizes resources to assist them, eight are no longer considered high risk and 80 percent (12 medical centers) show measurable improvements since being placed under StAT in January 2018.
“There’s no doubt that there’s still plenty of work to do, but I’m proud of our employees, who work tirelessly to move VA in the right direction for Veterans and taxpayers,” Wilkie said.
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