With a growing Veteran population and evolving health care demands, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) faces critical workforce challenges. In response to the 2022 PACT Act, which primarily expanded care access for Veterans exposed to military toxins like burn pits, VA began assessing staffing levels at VA Medical Centers (VAMCs) nationwide.
To support this congressional requirement, in collaboration with the VA Office of Human Resources and Administration, the Partnered Evidence-based Policy Resource Center (PEPReC) developed population-based workforce guidelines for Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24).
These guidelines offer a data-driven approach to help VAMCs evaluate both current and future staffing needs to ensure timely access to care for Veterans. PEPReC’s supply and demand models incorporate validated metrics, such as new patient clinic work rates and clinic time, to determine how VAMCs can meet preestablished wait time standards. The FY24 guidelines focus on primary care and eight specialty care services that are either high volume or related to military toxic exposure care. Qualitative evaluation was used to refine the guidelines.
For more details on the latest guidelines and workforce planning strategies, read the full brief here.
PEPReC, within the Veterans Health Administration and funded in large part by the Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI), is a team of health economists, health services and public health researchers, statistical programmers, and policy analysts who engage policymakers to improve Veterans’ lives through evidence-driven innovations using advanced quantitative methods.
