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From Monday, March 4th to Wednesday, March 6th, VA employees gathered in Ann Arbor on the University of Michigan campus for the VISN 10 Innovation and Improvement Summit to highlight and celebrate innovations happening across VISN 10. Leadership and frontline innovators from across VISN 10 worked collaboratively to develop strategies on how best to establish a culture of innovation.
On the first day of the summit, Assistant Under Secretary for Health for Discovery, Education, and Affiliate Networks, Dr. Carolyn Clancy, opened the event by centering the Veterans and innovators: “We have people with ideas looking to translate them into solutions, united by a desire to share health care innovations to benefit our Veterans. We must grow this culture of innovation.”
The summit offered attendees an opportunity to collaborate with regional industry and academic partners, connect with other sites within the VISN, and network and celebrate the past year’s successes. There was an opportunity to brainstorm ideas to enhance VISN 10’s innovation-based solutions, identify diffusion best practices, and determine long-term implementation strategies to include metrics and accountability. VA Employees leading VHA Innovators Network and Systems Redesign projects had the opportunity to present posters and discuss common successes and challenges with employees from other VISN 10 facilities.
Executive Director of VHA Innovation Ecosystem, Kit Teague, opened the second day of the summit by emphasizing the need for collaboration in driving innovation for Veterans. Teague stated that “only through collaboration and contributions from both industry and government can groundbreaking technology be transferred across society, transforming the way the world works.
On day two, Innovation Specialists Melissa Yates from VA Ann Arbor and Andrew Scheffer from VA Detroit led an engaging discussion with local Veteran Service Organizations (VSO) representatives, who were attending the Summit to foster collaboration and explore avenues for enhancing health care innovations for Veterans. The group discussed the various ways VSOs and their members can play an active part in shaping the future of VA care, including providing feedback on early project designs through the VHA Innovators Network.
The VISN 10 summit concluded with virtual remarks from VA Under Secretary for Health, Dr. Shereef Elnahal, who recognized the remarkable achievements of VISN 10 and several of the innovators in attendance. Dr. Ginny Creasman, Ann Arbor VA Medical Center Director also made remarks focusing on the themes of collaboration at the summit. “The frontline staff strengthening our culture of innovation is vital. All the people who are here are integral pieces of what makes the VA so powerful. I want to say thank you to everyone who came.”
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This Thursday at noon ET, Diffusion Specialist Blaine Fitzgerald will join C20 to spread the word about applications various VHA IE programs that will launch on April 1st. Join us to learn about these various opportunities, including:
- VHA Innovators Network New Site Applications
- VHA Innovators Network Go Fish! Program
- VHA Shark Tank Competition
- VHA IE Fellowships
We hope to see you on Thursday! Keep an eye out for upcoming newsletters where we will share more application details.
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The VHA Innovators Network has launched the return of its "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 Brent Aguilar, Human Centered Design Lead for the VHA Innovators Network and Innovation Specialist at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, and will provide an introduction to human centered design and how innovators can apply proven principles to foster empathy and enhance problem solving.
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 Dr. Rona Relova is a Research Health Scientist at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System and a 2024 Senior Innovation Fellow with VHA Innovation Ecosystem. Dr. Relova recently attended and presented at the AMSUS Annual Meeting, which brought together health professionals from all federal health agencies. In close collaboration with Dr. Deepak Voora and the VA National Pharmacogenomics (PGx) Program office, Dr. Relova presented her work that underscores a critical aspect of the program- the timely return of PGx results. This impacts the sustainment of this novel, game-changing approach to care. Her dedication reflects the continuous efforts within the fellowship to overcome the challenges and develop agile processes to address the manual data entry of PGx results in Vista-CPRS.
Pharmacogenomics, or PGx, is an emerging, highly actionable precision medicine approach. PGx informs how an individual's genetic make-up affects one's response to different medications. PGx enables providers to personalize drug prescriptions. Right drug. Right dose. Right time. PGx can be leveraged to optimize drug effectiveness while limiting side effects. By utilizing PGx, it takes out the guesswork and trial-and-error in prescribing.
In this collaborative environment fostered by AMSUS and the VHA Innovation Ecosystem, individuals like Dr. Relova are empowered to pioneer solutions, contributing to the advancement of precision medicine initiatives that are keenly aligned with VHA’s mission to be a high-reliability organization.
Dr. Relova has served in various leadership and advisory roles for the VA Genomic Medicine Program (Million Veteran Program), the NIH Precision Medicine Initiative, the Stanford Medicine X- a premier program on emerging technology and medicine, and the International Health, Wellness & Society Research Network. She is a textbook editor/author for the Digital Health Technologies of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, UK. Currently, she leads several investigational new drug studies. Her work in translational research takes scientific discoveries to the clinic and transforms key findings into new treatments and patient-centered innovations in medical care that ultimately improve Veteran health. Watch this informational video to learn more about PGx in VA.
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