New York State Health Foundation Funded Study Finds Most NY Health Providers Are Not Ready to Care for Veterans
Only about 2 percent of the physicians and other health care providers in New York State are equipped to provide timely and quality care to veterans in the community, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
Scoring the civilian medical workforce across seven measures of readiness to treat veterans, the study found that most providers fell short on items such as being familiar with the military culture or routinely screening for conditions common among veterans.
The study is the first to gather information about the readiness of community-based providers across a wide array of professional types to address the health needs facing veterans. The issue is important because federal officials are considering whether to encourage more veterans to use their benefits to receive care in the community rather than from the Veterans Affairs health system.
"These findings reveal significant gaps and variations in the readiness of community-based health care providers to provide high-quality care to veterans," said Terri Tanielian, the study's lead author and a senior behavioral scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "It appears that more work needs to be done to prepare the civilian health care workforce to care for the unique needs of veterans."
New York State is home to more than 800,000 veterans, half of whom are younger than 65 years of age. The VA spends about $6.3 billion annually on benefits and services for veterans in the state, with nearly one-half spent on medical services.
The New York State Health Foundation asked RAND to assess the readiness and capacity of the state's civilian health workforce to deliver high-quality care to veterans.