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 During the American Legion's 64th Annual Washington Conference, VHA IE's Community Builder, Matthew Rowley spoke with more than 125 members during the National Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Commission. Rowley highlighted VHA innovations designed to address social isolation/mental health/suicide prevention, aligning them with the American Legion's Be the One program. Legionnaires in attendance were introduced to several innovation projects including Compassionate Contact Corps, Veteran Socials, and the National Pharmacogenomics Program. They were also provided resources to get in touch with their closest Innovation Specialist to facilitate legionnaires' involvement at the VA facility level. Read the full recap from the American Legion here.
Following the American Legion conference, members of the team joined Disabled American Veterans for the unveiling of their new report, “Women Veterans: The Journey to Mental Wellness”. Women veterans told their stories and discussed the staggering suicide rates and mental health statistics of women veterans. DAV laid out actionable steps and possible legislation and policy changes to address the issues outlined in the report.
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On February 25 in Los Angeles, the Mission Daybreak team took the stage at ViVE 2024 to discuss how VA is driving new suicide prevention innovations and showcase teams’ solutions. During the program, audience members had the opportunity to hear directly from Mission Daybreak teams Battle Buddy and ReflexAI before NeuroFlow also joined for live demos.
“We take what’s called a public health approach—meaning we understand you will not solve suicide with just clinicians,” said VHA’s Dr. Todd Burnett in his opening remarks. “It takes everyone being at the table if we’re going to make a difference for this. That’s our approach, both in VA and in what we’re doing to scale our interventions outside. And that’s where you all come in.”
Later that week at ViVE, VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal took to the stage to share how VA is using partnership initiatives such as Mission Daybreak to develop community-driven innovations and support systems.
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the VHA Innovators Network returns with their "Ignite" series, a four-week virtual workshop experience open to all VA employees where iNET spurs new ways of thinking, introduces VA employees to the power of iNET, and fires up the inherent creative problem-solving power of our workforce.
The sessions introduce and expound upon innovative concepts that employees can apply directly to their work and serves as a sourcing mechanism for employees across VA to apply to get involved in iNET competitions, such as Go Fish! and the Spark-Seed-Spread innovation investment program.
Tomorrow's session will be hosted at 1PM ET by Allison Amrhein, Director of the VHA Innovators Network, and will share strategies that can help employees make time for innovation.
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Throughout the pandemic, the Home-Based Primary Care (HBPC) program at James H. Quillen VA Medical Center in Mountain Home, TN experienced challenges with effective communication due to remote working, staffing shortages, and fragmentation in workflow processes. These challenges led to declining communication satisfaction scores and an increase in the time to deliver care to Veterans.
In 2021, Kelli Jones, HBPC Nurse Manager, and her HBPC team at the James H. Quillen VA created Improving Communication in HBPC to address communication challenges, streamline processes, and provide relevant tools to staff, Veterans, and caregivers.
The practice streamlines all incoming calls into one main phone line and uses an HBPC Incoming Telephone Call Disposition Guide to direct frontline staff on dispositioning calls. The HBPC team offers Veterans and caregivers a Wellness Checkup Tool to help determine when to contact them, based on signs and symptoms. This initiative has led to more seamless communication between Veterans and the HBPC team, higher Veteran communication satisfaction scores, and more timely care delivery.
The HBPC team recently implemented its practice at the Orlando VA as a 2022 VHA Shark Tank Competition winner. Improving Communication in HBPC currently serves over 1,200 Veterans at the James H. Quillen VAMC and Orlando VAMC.
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VISN 10 Remote Temperature Monitoring (RTM) Coordinator, Josh Manis, recently received the CHAI CARE Award (COVID-19 Hero Award for Innovation + I CARE)! This award, part of Dr. Chad Kessler’s C20 Podcast, recognizes innovators who excel in serving Veterans and VHA community.
Josh, a Veteran himself, approaches everything he does with meticulous care and an unwavering commitment to excellence. He remains devoted to VA’s mission, even during challenging times. Using a blend of humor and empathy, he keeps others moving forward and shines in face-to-face interactions with Veterans.
RTM, a 2020 VHA Shark Tank winner and National Diffusion Practice introduces new care models to monitor at-risk diabetic Veterans remotely. The practice has been implemented in over 100 VA medical centers and has nearly 10,000 Veterans actively participating.
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