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Department of Veterans Affairs leadership share how technology and the workforce is keeping veteran care and benefits at the forefront.

What was mentioned as the “elephant in the room” was quickly addressed by Department of Veterans Affairs leadership to members of 51�Թ�’s Veterans Affairs & Rehabilitation Commission – how the VA is ensuring that any changes with personnel doesn’t impact veteran healthcare.

“In the efforts by (VA) Secretary Collins to create greater efficiencies and accountabilities in our workforce and the work that we do, all of the clinical facing positions – roughly 370,000 individuals working in VHA (Veterans Health Administration) – almost 340,000 of them were exempted from any considerations of discharge, any considerations of hiring freezes, and were exempted from the early retirement provision unless authorized,” Dr. Thomas O’Toole, Acting Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Health at VHA, shared with the commission members on Aug. 23 during the 106^th National Convention in Tampa, Fla. “We clearly are working hard to keep intact our veteran-facing workforce providing care to veterans.”

With that, O’Toole said that wait times have decreased to be seen in primary care, mental health care and other specialty units, and access to care for rural veterans through telehealth has increased.

“We are putting at the forefront – it’s one of the secretary’s priorities – that access to care, whether it be direct care at the VA or care through community providers, is first and foremost of our priorities,” he said. “Again, it is a work in progress. Something we will constantly be working on. We will have hiccups along the way. Your advocacy to being a better agency is greatly needed and appreciated.”

On the disability claims side, “What you have seen is that there has been no degradation in services,” said Margarita Devlin, Acting Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Benefits at the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA). “We have completed the most amount of disability claims completions ever, over 2.5 million, and we’ve exceeded last year’s production way ahead of schedule.”

Devlin said the ability to receive decisions faster on claims is a combination of efforts by VBA employees, technicians, adjudicators and automation efforts. Before automation with disability claims, it could take up to 30 days on average, Devlin shared, adding that the VA is also looking at other ways to expedite claims such as automating acceptable clinical evidence for a doctor to make a decision quicker, as well as automating Dependency and Indemnity Compensation claims.

“It’s all about expediting the claim,” she said. “I will say it’s really important to note that quality and accuracy is very, very critical to us when we’re looking at automation. We do have humans overseeing the process, looking at it and making sure that our accuracy is where it needs to be when we’re automating in the disability claims process.”

Other ways technology is being used by the VA to increase and improve efficiency is with the use of AI for suicide prevention efforts. O’Toole said they have been applying AI to look at medical records and demographic data to identify veterans who may be highest at risk for suicide, or a suicide attempt, and proactively reach out to them to prevent it. “The data shows in capacities like that we have made a difference, and we need to continue and continue to push ourselves.”

O’Toole said that 60% of suicides by veterans are those not enrolled in the VA health-care system. To help reach those veterans, the VA is awarding grants through the to community-based organizations that provide suicide prevention or emergency clinical services to veterans at risk of suicide.

The grants are “not only to try to increase enrollment in the VA, bringing people in so they can benefit from the services, but also enhancing the community capacity to be that wraparound support system for veterans because it really is a village that needs to be activated to impact it,” he said, adding that suicide ideation drivers can be economic distress, separation from service, chronic pain or mental health. “All these factors play different roles at different times in people’s lives, and we have to have that flexibility of response to be able to respond to that veteran.”

Devlin’s passion is in the transition space of ensuring servicemembers understand their benefits and apply before getting out of the military. Currently, servicemembers are receiving a call after transitioning out of the military that are not scripted, “It’s about ‘How are you?’,” Devlin said, and identifying what services they are or are not taking advantage of is an advancement they hope to see through using AI before the call is made. Those calls have referred veterans to the 988 Veterans Crisis Line, and one call identified a veteran living out of his car without a job.

“I didn’t serve, but have been serving veterans almost my whole adult life, and one thing I’ve learned is that when a servicemember leaves the military and they become a civilian, they lose something that is beyond employment status, beyond economic. It’s a social network that is deeper than anything you find in civilian communities,” said Devlin, whose son is a Marine Corps veteran. “You are in communities where veterans live and work and the more you can do to bring veterans together to have that sense of community, I think that will help a lot towards suicide prevention.”

O’Toole reiterated the importance of community and how 51�Թ� can help.

“Study after study shows that it’s the social isolation, it’s the disenfranchised that a lot of veterans feel that is oftentimes the driver that makes suicide the most viable option,” he said. “It is important to keep in mind that there is a lot of stigma to talking about this, and fear and discomfort of asking those questions, and creating a space for a veteran to share that is important. To the extent that veterans trust you, you are providing that safe community is critical to creating that space to be able to share and destigmatize the hurt that they are having.”