All Reports

The Martinsburg VA Medical Center Director conducts a comprehensive review of the peer review process from identification to completion to ensure adherence with Veterans Health Administration Directive 1190(1), Peer Review for Quality Management, amended July 19, 2024, and takes action as warranted.

The Martinsburg VA Medical Center Director ensures the chief of surgery assesses Surgeon B’s alleged disruptive behavior and takes action if needed, in accordance with VA Handbook 5021, Employee-Management Relations, and Martinsburg VA Medical Center bylaws.

The Under Secretary for Health reviews the Veterans Health Administration’s current use of generative AI chat tools, defines permissible clinical uses for general-purpose AI chat tools, oversight responsibilities, and risk mitigation, and outlines a plan for implementation.

The Under Secretary for Health evaluates whether safeguards applied to other high-impact AI tools, such as Ambient AI Scribe, should be adapted for generative AI chat tools used for clinical care and documentation.

The Under Secretary for Health oversees integration of AI-related risk monitoring into existing patient safety programs and ensures staff are trained to identify and report AI-related safety events.

Identify all relevant stakeholders and formally define roles and responsibilities for the police staffing decision tool or similar model.

Coordinate with all relevant stakeholders to address vulnerabilities with the police staffing decision tool or a similar model.

Ensure the Manpower Management Service’s standard operating procedures are followed to document formal completion of the police staffing decision tool or a similar model.

Assign accountability for disseminating the finalized police staffing decision tool or a similar model and ensuring its use.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director conducts a comprehensive review of the care provided to the patient prior to the event, and takes action as indicated.

The Robley Rex VA Medical Center Director ensures that the facility has a mechanism in place for how Veterans Health Administration healthcare professionals will provide content of suicide prevention safety plans when completing suicide prevention safety plans with patients over the phone.

The Robley Rex VA Medical Center Director reviews facility Primary Care-Mental Health Integration guidance documents and ensures consistency and alignment with Veterans Health Administration requirements.

The Robley Rex VA Medical Center Director reconsiders the practice of reauthoring notes in the Computerized Patient Record System by behavioral health technicians in the Primary Care-Mental Health Integration call center, identifies other facility areas that use the reauthoring process, and takes action as indicated.

The Under Secretary for Health evaluates ways to mitigate the implications resulting from users’ ability to change authors in an unsigned note in the Computerized Patient Record System to ensure that such practice is limited to those in roles with a need to have that function, and takes action as indicated.

The Robley Rex VA Medical Center Director ensures that root cause analyses are completed in accordance with Veterans Health Administration policy, including root cause analysis process steps, timeliness, and team roles.

The Robley Rex VA Medical Center Director ensures that patient safety managers receive oversight, training, and support as required by the Veterans Health Administration.

The Robley Rex VA Medical Center Director ensures that the chief of quality understands the seriousness and implications of altering documentation without support, and that leaders, whose actions contributed to the deficiencies outlined in this report, receive administrative action, as appropriate.

The VA Caribbean Healthcare System Director ensures that facility leaders make decisions regarding the need for institutional disclosures independent of the peer review process in alignment with VHA Directive 1190 (1), Peer Review for Quality Management.

The West Palm Beach VA Healthcare System Director ensures 3C leaders are aware of and comply with Mental Health Environment of Care Checklist requirements on the inpatient mental health unit.

The West Palm Beach VA Healthcare System Director reviews the inpatient mental health patient safety observation practices to ensure compliance with VHA SOP 1160.06.1, “Standard Operating Procedure for Maintaining Safety and Security on Inpatient Mental Health Units Under VHA Directive 1160.06,” and Facility Medical Center Policy 118-01, Enhanced Observation Level requirements.

The West Palm Beach VA Healthcare System Director ensures staff performing patient safety observation on 3C receive recurring training on conducting observation practices, including face-to-face visualization, in alignment with VHA SOP 1160.06.1, “Standard Operating Procedure for Maintaining Safety and Security on Inpatient Mental Health Units Under VHA Directive 1160.06,” requirements.

The West Palm Beach VA Healthcare System Director develops and implements an oversight process for ongoing monitoring of inpatient mental health patient safety observation practices and documentation to ensure compliance with VHA SOP 1160.06.1, “Standard Operating Procedure for Maintaining Safety and Security on Inpatient Mental Health Units Under VHA Directive 1160.06” requirements.

The West Palm Beach VA Healthcare System Director develops a plan to reassess the effectiveness of the oversight process.

The West Palm Beach VA Healthcare System Director ensures that when 3C leaders identify incongruencies between patient safety observation practice and documentation, 3C leaders conduct a review of the incident and take corrective action, as warranted.

The Veterans Crisis Line Executive Director takes action to evaluate and implement mechanisms that facilitate ongoing, bidirectional communication between Veterans Crisis Line frontline staff and leaders to ensure staff have an avenue to express concerns, share feedback, and receive timely, relevant responses.

The Veterans Crisis Line Executive Director considers using social service assistant-specific workload data to determine social service assistant staffing levels rather than a fixed ratio of responders to social service assistants.

Remediate servers that are not compliant with configuration standards and ensure periodic compliance scanning of servers.

Remediate databases that are not compliant with configuration standards and ensure quarterly compliance and vulnerability scanning of databases.

Remediate vulnerabilities within VA-defined timeframes and document mitigations for vulnerabilities that cannot be remediated on time.

Comprehensively scan all the facility’s local area network segments for vulnerabilities.

Prepare plans of action and milestones for unapproved software still in use. 

Remediate or document mitigations for physical security deficiencies that can affect IT operations and resources. 

Implement required controls on certain privileged accounts and ensure limited access to these account usernames and passwords.

Define intervals for review of database audit logs and vulnerability scan results and ensure regular collection and review of database audit logs in accordance with policy.

Verify and document the identity of vendors or contractors consistently before granting them access to IT resources.

Provide access control list protection for all networked medical devices hosted on the VA Saginaw Healthcare System virtual local area networks.

Develop and communicate guidance that explains what detail should be included in a valid justification for every Veterans Benefits Management System for Rating override.

Develop and implement a plan to reestablish an overrides quality review process that provides individualized feedback for claims processors.

Develop and implement a plan to monitor the effectiveness of override reviews and continue to address areas and trends that are found to need improvement.

Identify the business need for the override review tab and, if there is one, develop and implement requirements for updating and using it.

Develop and implement a plan that addresses the limitations of the aggregate dashboard.

The Under Secretary for Health ensures the third-party administrator and community care breast imaging providers are informed of the expectations and processes for provision of breast images to the referring VA facility, addresses any barriers identified, and follows up to ensure compliance.

The VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System Director ensures that facility community care staff comply with Veterans Health Administration requirements for requesting medical records, including images, from community providers and documentation of the receipt of medical records, including images, and follows up to ensure compliance.

The VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System Director reviews processes, to ensure community care images are uploaded timely; assesses identified barriers, including staffing; and follows up to ensure compliance.

The Under Secretary for Health reviews limitations of current VA image sharing technologies, considers implementation of technologies to support timely sharing of images with community providers, and takes action as warranted.

The VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System Director reviews facility policy and standard operating procedures to ensure sufficient guidance and resources for compliance with Veterans Health Administration requirements for breast cancer screening, follow-up, and care coordination, and takes action as warranted.

The VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System Director assesses the scope of the lack of tracking of breast cancer screening and follow-up for patients with a BIRADS 0, 3, 4, 5, or 6 from at least February 2024 forward to ensure all patients receive appropriate notification and timely follow-up of findings, and takes action as indicated.

The VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System Director ensures credentialing and privileging staff complete primary source verification of credentials, and monitors for compliance.

The VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System Director makes certain that clinical service chiefs follow processes for review of supporting documentation during the credentialing and privileging process, and follows up to ensure compliance.

The VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System Director ensures that the radiology service chief initiates focused professional practice evaluations timely, as required, and monitors for compliance.

The Under Secretary for Health ensures alcohol use screening performance monitoring to demonstrate sustained improvement of required alcohol use screening.

The Under Secretary for Health reviews the clinical implications and considers implementing sex-specific thresholds to prompt the delivery of brief intervention in response to alcohol use screening and takes action as appropriate.

The Facility Director ensures the Mental Health Executive Council includes veteran representation.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director provides oversight and monitoring of bed utilization.

The Chief of Mental Health ensures a minimum of four hours of recovery-oriented, interdisciplinary programming on weekends on the inpatient mental health unit.

The Facility Director develops and implements written processes to monitor and track compliance with state involuntary commitment requirements.

The Chief of Staff ensures staff use the required admission note template to document legal commitment status.

The Chief of Staff ensures documentation of discussions between prescribers and veterans on the risks and benefits of newly prescribed central nervous system medications.

The Chief of Staff ensures discharge summaries are completed within two business days of discharge.

The Chief of Staff ensures discharge instructions for veterans include appointment locations written in easy-to-understand language.

The Chief of Staff ensures discharge instructions for veterans include an explanation when both trade and generic names are used for the same medication.

The Chief of Staff directs staff to complete and document the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale within 24 hours before veterans’ discharge.

The Facility Director directs nonclinical staff to complete VA S.A.V.E. training requirements.

The Facility Director ensures compliance with Veterans Health Administration requirements for the Interdisciplinary Safety Inspection Team, including an assigned lead and recording of meeting minutes and membership.

The Facility Director implements processes to ensure the Interdisciplinary Safety Inspection Team applies Mental Health Environment of Care Checklist standards on the inpatient mental health unit.

The Facility Director directs inpatient unit staff and Interdisciplinary Safety Inspection Team members to complete Mental Health Environment of Care Checklist training requirements.

The Facility Executive Director ensures the Mental Health Executive Council includes veteran representation.

The Facility Executive Director ensures staff complete the mental health nursing admission screen note, with veterans’ legal status, for admissions to the inpatient mental health unit and develops a plan to monitor for sustained compliance.

The Chief of Staff ensures documentation of discussions between the prescriber and veteran on the risks and benefits of newly prescribed medications prior to administration and develops a plan to monitor for sustained compliance.

The Chief of Staff ensures veterans’ discharge instructions are written in easy-to-understand language and include the purpose of each medication.

The Facility Executive Director ensures staff complete VA S.A.V.E. training and develops a plan to monitor for sustained compliance.

The Facility Executive Director ensures Interdisciplinary Safety Inspection Team members participate in Mental Health Environment of Care Checklist inspections and develops a plan to monitor for sustained compliance.

The Facility Executive Director ensures all required individuals complete Mental Health Environment of Care Checklist annual training and develops a plan to monitor for sustained compliance.

Strengthen and monitor the automation process to ensure that automated Dependency and Indemnity Compensation rating decisions and notifications fully comply with all legal requirements and procedural guidance.

Ensure the Pension and Fiduciary Service revises the quality review checklist for automated death benefits decisions so that those decisions undergo the same scrutiny as traditionally processed claims.

Consult with VA’s Office of General Counsel to determine whether the modernization plan submitted to Congress—regarding service-connected death benefit grants—complies with section 701(b) of the PACT Act and take appropriate corrective action if needed.

Take corrective action on the remaining three of seven instances that led to about $612,000 in improper payments.

Update requirements provided to the VA Hines Information Technology Center to ensure all foreign beneficiaries, including those with an address in the Philippines, are included in the annual end product generation.

Update the Veterans Benefits Administration’s Adjudication Procedures Manual to clarify and strengthen the actions claims processors should take to verify foreign beneficiaries are alive.

Ensure jurisdiction guidance for routine reviews for residents in the Philippines is clearly communicated to all regional offices.

Provide guidance to assist claims processors in verifying information in the Veterans Benefits Administration’s systems compared to the results from the Social Security Administration inquiry results.

Update the Adjudication Procedures Manual to require claims processors to upload the Social Security Administration inquiry results to beneficiaries’ records.

The VA Loma Linda Healthcare System Director ensures the Chief of Staff signs peer review designation memoranda within three days of determining a peer review is needed as outlined in Veterans Health Administration policy.

The VA Loma Linda Healthcare System Director ensures that focused professional practice evaluations for initial appointments and additional privileges are completed in accordance with Veterans Health Administration policy and monitors for compliance.