Recognizing Achievements Across VHA

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iEX Awards Ceremony Recognizes Employee Accomplishments

One of the many features of the 2022 Innovation Experience (iEX) was the Awards Ceremony. While iEX serves as a celebration and recognition of the achievements of innovators both within and outside of VA, the Awards Ceremony provides a formal opportunity to celebrate VA innovators and the work they do each day to save Veteran lives and Reimagine Veteran Healthcare.

COVID Makers Challenge Winners

During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Veterans Health Administration Innovation Ecosystem (VHA IE) collaborated with Veteran non-profit Challenge America on a series of five COVID-19 Maker Challenge events that brought innovators from across the country together for make-a-thons to develop solutions to the most pressing problems brought on by the pandemic. Hosting iEX both in-person and virtually allowed VHA to recognize challenge winners in-person this year.

These were individuals who stepped up during the pandemic to create products that got into the hands of both Veterans and their care providers to save lives.

Team Symptom Check 2: This team’s solution worked to test workers and visitors as they entered nursing homes each day. This team allowed providers to get into nursing homes quickly and safely to care for patients.

Team Happy Face: This team designed comfortable, 3D Printed masks that allowed first responders to customize both their mask appearance and fit.

Team Tessellation Sanitation Station: This innovative solution uses concentrated UVC lighting to create a Tessellation Sanitation Station, capable of sanitizing luggage and other objects in just seconds, including objects in the field.

Telehealth Case: Through this continuation project, Team Hermtac managed to equip their mobile telehealth case with full data connectivity to conduct home visits and forward triage regardless of Wi-Fi or LTE access.

Pandemi 800 Ventilator: PANDEMI VENT 800 is a $300 Open-Source ventilator built using highly available commodity hardware, a novel low-cost sensor package, and 3D printed parts. It includes all basic features of a ventilator, in addition to a centralized monitoring station and a resuscitation automated assistance breathing mode.

Innovators Network (iNET) Awards

The VHA Innovators Network is a group of 36 VA medical centers (VAMC) across the country who invest in and concentrate on, employee driven, Veteran-focused innovation. iNET supports both the design and development of employee generated Veteran solutions and the education of thousands of employees through teaching innovation competencies such as Human Centered Design (HCD), lean start-up, storytelling, building an innovation strategy, and more.

In 2019, iNET began recognizing revolutionary VA employee innovators and innovation leaders.

Tanked Award: The “Tanked” Award celebrates the idea of agile innovation, ability to pivot a solution, or the incredible dedication to solving a problem no matter what obstacles arise. The 2022 Tanked Award was presented to Stacie Garcia from the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.

Investee of the Year: The Investee of the Year is a VA employee who has gone above and beyond on their journey to innovator and has persevered in their innovation journey. The 2022 Investee of the Year was awarded to Kevin Johnson of the Cincinnati VA Medical Center.

Innovation Specialist of the Year: Innovation Specialist of the Year represents the accomplishments of an incredible innovation community leader from a VAMC. The 2022 Innovation Specialist of the Year is Kim Bielicki from the VA Orlando Healthcare System.

Dr. Robert L. Jesse Awards 

Each year, the VHA Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning honors three categories of innovators with the Under Secretary for Health’s Dr. Robert L. Jesse Award for Excellence in Innovation. This award was established in 2019 to honor Dr. Robert L. Jesse, who was appointed Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Health in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on July 4, 2010. The award gives distinction to VA employees who have demonstrated brilliance enabling the discovery and spread of healthcare innovation that exceeds expectations, restores hope, and builds trust within VA.

This year’s awards are for the following categories:

• Clinical, for innovators leading clinical care efforts
  • Dr. Adam Bock, CPRS Booster – Dr. Adam Bock is the Chief of Informatics and a practicing primary care doctor at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System. Approximately two years ago, he started on a mission to improve the ease of use and efficiency of VA clinical computer systems. Driven by what was quite literally an obsession to reduce burnout among healthcare professionals, he saw a way to create his own software which, when run together with VA computer systems, dramatically increases efficiency, and reduces the workload required to perform a wide range of computer tasks. He called this product CPRS Booster: after CPRS which is the current VA electronic medical system. In a survey of Booster users: employees ranging from physicians to pharmacists to medical clerks to nurses all rated this product as the single most useful enhancement to VA computer efficiency ever. At this time, well over 30,000 VA employees across the country use his freely available software.
• Non-Clinical, for IT and other non-healthcare related innovators
  • Charles Franklin, VA Rideshare - Charles Franklin is an Innovation Project Manager and VA Rideshare innovator out of the VISN 1 New England Center for Innovation Excellence. VA Rideshare began as a pilot with ten Veterans at VA Boston Health Care System in 2018, and since August 2021, has facilitated more than 250,000 rides across 2.5 million miles for Veterans – an average of over 12,000 rides weekly. These miles translate to life-altering access to care for over 105,000 medical appointments, 20,000 for housing, 15,000 for food and critical community services for Veterans, and 25,000 for employment. Under Mr. Franklin’s leadership, VA Rideshare now operates nationally to support the VA Homeless Program Office across more than 165 VA Medical Centers.
• Team, for innovative teams or organizations within VA
  • Eli Kaufman and Daniel Abrahamson, Mobile Prosthetic and Orthotic Care Program - Eli Kaufman and Daniel Abrahamson are the National Program leaders for the Mobile Orthotic and Prosthetic Care Program out of VISN 20. The MoPOC care model incorporates teams of mobile prosthetic and orthotic clinicians who are equipped with specialty vehicles and tools to provide care at small VA clinics in rural communities and at the homes of Veterans. After piloting their mobile program locally, they forged a path for national implementation by becoming an Enterprise-Wide Initiative through the VHA Office of Rural Health. Currently at five sites nationwide, this year, MoPOC is expanding to five additional sites: Columbia, SC; Syracuse, NY; Sioux Falls, SD; Fargo, ND; Guam. MoPOC is achieving their vision to provide world-class multidisciplinary VA-based care that is accessible to all Veterans with Prosthetic and Orthotic needs, enabling Veterans to Choose VA.

Catch Up on iEX

Want to watch the Awards Ceremony? You can watch the ceremony, and the rest of Day 3 of iEX, right here. Looking for additional recap information from iEX? Explore the iEX webpage for additional photos, videos, and digestible recaps of each event/