VA Health Care: Too Many Operating Rooms Being Planned and Built
HRD-86-78
Published: Apr 29, 1986. Publicly Released: Apr 29, 1986.
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Highlights
GAO examined the Veterans Administration's (VA) method for determining operating room requirements in new and replacement hospitals and identified the differences between VA-stated operating room needs and the requirements a GAO surgical work-load model identified.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Veterans Administration | The Administrator of Veterans Affairs should direct the Chief Medical Director to instruct Ann Arbor project officials to develop a final model that will use a preestablished 80-percent utilization rate for determining the number of operating rooms. |
Closed – Not Implemented
VA does not believe that all facilities should be expected to have the same utilization rate. It believes that it is necessary to consider variable factors in determining utilization rates.
|
| Veterans Administration | The Administrator of Veterans Affairs should direct the Chief Medical Director to give planners guidance on how to adjust work-load projections to reflect changes in the model's planning factors and monitor VA planners' calculations of projected work loads to ensure that adjustments are consistent with the guidance. |
Closed – Implemented
VA concurred with this recommendation and stated that appropriate changes to its criteria will be made based upon the final results of the planning model developed by the Ann Arbor project. VA has developed an operating room planning model and has used this model in all projects started in fiscal years 1991 and 1992.
|
| Veterans Administration | The Administrator of Veterans Affairs should direct the Chief Medical Director to stop using the current VA operating room planning criterion and use the GAO methodology to determine the required numbers of new or replacement operating rooms until the Ann Arbor model is implemented. |
Closed – Not Implemented
VA believes that the GAO model is outdated because it was developed, to a large degree, based on 1981 data. VA further believes that it would be better to implement a planning model which is based on current cost and work-load variables.
|
| Veterans Administration | The Administrator of Veterans Affairs should direct the Chief Medical Director to reassess all existing construction projects to eliminate, where cost-effective, unnecessary operating rooms. |
Closed – Implemented
VA agreed with this recommendation and stated that all construction projects in the planning stage should be reassessed based on the new model. VA has developed new operating room planning guidelines and uses these guidelines to reassess its 5-year construction plan each year.
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Topics
Construction costsHealth care cost controlHealth resources utilizationHospital administrationHospital planningProjectionsSurgeryVeterans hospitalsConstructionVeterans