VA Mid-Atlantic Health Care Network

VA logo for Integrity, Commitment, Advocacy, Respect, Excellence, known as ICARE

For many Veterans, deciding when, where and how to receive health care is often one of the most complex and challenging decisions about the entire health care process. Healthcare performance, access or quality of care data, is very complicated, leaving many Veterans at a loss at just what is the best course of action for them. Now, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs is launching a new website with an access and quality tool to help Veterans make more informed choices.

The Access and Quality in VA Healthcare website allows Veterans to access the most transparent and easy to understand wait time and quality of care measures across the health care industry. That means Veterans can quickly and easily compare access and quality measures from their VA facility to other VA’s and make informed choices about where, when and how they receive their healthcare. Further, they will not be able to compare the quality of VA Center care to local private sector hospitals.     

This tool will take highly complex data and make it transparent to the highest number of Veterans. This is just one tool in the toolbox VA is introducing to restore Veterans trust and confidence in the VA. The new online tool was developed for VA to provide Veterans with easy to use data related to;

• How long patients are waiting to be seen in their VA
• How Veterans describe their experiences scheduling primary and specialty care
• Timeliness of appointments for care needed right away
• Information about the quality of healthcare delivered at every medical center compared to local private sector hospitals.  

This new website will be a work in progress as the VA continues to receive feedback from Veterans, employees, media, VSO’s and their congressional partners, to improve the site’s tools and capabilities based on Veterans input. The VA’s goal is to continue to improve this tool to help ensure that the access and quality of care website is a Veteran-driven, Veteran-designed point of access for the services our Veterans deserve. Please visit to www.accesstocare.va.gov

 

Click here to enter the tool

 

What is the Access and Quality Tool?

This tool allows Veterans to access the most transparent and easy to understand wait time and quality measures across the health care industry. That means Veterans can quickly and easily compare access and quality measures from their VA facility to other VA’s and make informed choices about where and when they receive their healthcare.

 

What can Veterans find in the tool?

• How long patients are waiting to be seen in their VA
• How Veterans describe their experiences scheduling primary and specialty care
• Timeliness of appointments for care needed right away
• Information about the quality of healthcare delivered at every medical center compared to local private sector hospitals.  

 

Will Veterans be able to use this information to choose their healthcare facility?

Yes. This information informs Veterans about timeliness of care at VA facilities. The tool helps Veterans compare VA facilities to each other on wait times, veteran experiences with access, and other topics.