Kilmer’s VA reform bill aims for changes in troubled agency’s top ranks Read more here: http://www.

[unhappycamper]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/09/12/3376434/kilmers-va-reform-bill-aims-for.html?sp=/99/296/331/354/

Kilmer’s VA reform bill aims for changes in troubled agency’s top ranks
By Adam Ashton
Staff writer
September 12, 2014 Updated 14 hours ago

U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer wants to reform the top ranks at the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs by empowering the agency’s lower-level employees to recommend improvements without kicking off a full-blown whistleblower investigation.

He gathered a group of veterans in Tacoma on Friday to unveil a bill he plans to submit next week that takes aim at the management of the sprawling agency that has come under fire amid revelations that schedulers at many of its hospitals used gimmicks to hide long patient wait times. The Gig Harbor Democrat is targeting the Veterans Health Administration, which oversees the agency’s 151 medical centers.

Kilmer’s Veterans Health Administration Management Improvement Act would:

• Require the Government Accountability Office to study management practices at the VA’s health administration and produce reports for Congress.
• Create a management improvement pilot program based on the GAO reports.
• Establish a VA ombudsman program to give VA employees a channel to recommend changes to the organization that do not rise to the level of an Inspector General report on suspected waste, fraud and abuse.
• Write a veterans’ bill of rights for VA patients.

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More than 312,000 people work for the VA. The Obama administration requested $163.9 billion for the agency’s 2015 budget.

[KT2000]

1. Good plan!

Glad someone is working on this.