{"id":149561,"date":"2023-11-10T11:36:46","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T16:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=149561"},"modified":"2023-11-10T11:36:46","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T16:36:46","slug":"the-us-department-of-veterans-affairs-has-almost-450000-staff-but-still-hiring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=149561","title":{"rendered":"The US Department of Veterans Affairs has almost 450,000 staff, but still hiring"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The US Department of Veterans Affairs is the second largest federal employer. The VA has almost 450,000 workers. However, Denis McDonough, VA Secretary, believes that this department should have more staff. McDonough says that this is not a case of the VA being “too big.” Instead, there is a need for more veterans to access healthcare. The linked article also says that hiring additional staff will contribute to improving the hiring processes.<\/p>\n

From the Military Times:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

“I don’t think there’s a risk that all of the sudden we’re too big,” McDonough told Military Times. “There are veterans who need access to health care. There are veterans who need access to mental health care. And we want to make sure that they know we’re here for them and that they can get care with us.”<\/p>\n

But bringing in more staff will also mean improving federal hiring processes and ensuring that incentives keep pace with private-sector competitors. It’s a challenge that McDonough said his department has been preparing for since the pandemic upended a host of staffing plans and standards.<\/p>\n

In a wide-ranging interview ahead of Veterans Day celebrations this week, McDonough shared his goals for the coming year and the obstacles that could block them.<\/p>\n

Military Times:<\/b> <\/span>How big should VA get? Is there a point where it’s a self-feeding animal, where you’re hiring people for the sake of hiring people?<\/strong><\/p>\n

McDonough: My goal is that we have a relationship with every veteran in the country. There are between 18 and 19 million veterans in the country now. [This administration] has set a simple, straightforward goal that there will be more vets in our care when we leave than when we started.<\/p>\n

Now, that’s a challenge, because we have a health care system that is disproportionately weighted to veterans more than 60 years old. And one of the real, tremendous opportunities of the PACT Act just for us to develop relationships with younger veterans who have not had a relationship with VA, and may have been dissuaded from having a relationship with VA because of some of the stories that they’ve heard.<\/p>\n

Let’s remember, we’re not metering out how much care goes to the community, how much care stays in house. We’re trying to make determinations based on what’s the highest quality outcome for veterans. What’s the way to ensure the best possible medical and health care outcomes? And then on the benefits side, we’re saying that these are your benefits that you have earned, so it’s our job to get them to you.<\/p>\n

VA across the board is aggressively working to ensure that the veteran experience of each individual veteran is positive, the outcomes are positive. [Veterans] feel respected, such that they go and tell their friends that this is a good place to get care or file for your benefits.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The military Times has the rest of the article, including the balance of the interview, at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US Department of Veterans Affairs is the second largest federal employer. The VA has almost … The US Department of Veterans Affairs has almost 450,000 staff, but still hiring<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veteran-health-care","category-veterans-affairs-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=149561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=149561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=149561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=149561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}