VA Health Care for Women: In Need of Continued VA Attention (Testimony,
03/09/94, GAO/T-HEHS-94-114).

This testimony discusses the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA)
long-standing problems in meeting the health care needs of women
veterans and the implications for VA's role in a reformed national
health care system. VA has repeatedly stressed the need for delivering
better service to women veterans and has issued guidance to its medical
centers that responds to problems identified in a January 1992 GAO
report. VA's greatest success has been in improving privacy for women
veterans. VA has not, however, effectively monitored field facilities to
ensure that they have actually improved service for women veterans. For
example, even when medical centers submitted inadequate plans for
improving breast cancer screenings, VA did not notify the medical
centers of its findings. Under VA's health reform proposal, each veteran
would be assigned a primary care physician. This step should improve the
thoroughness of cancer screenings for women veterans. But real progress
in improving service for women veterans depends on the leadership of
individual VA medical center directors.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-HEHS-94-114
     TITLE:  VA Health Care for Women: In Need of Continued VA Attention
      DATE:  03/09/94
   SUBJECT:  Veterans benefits
             Veterans hospitals
             Health care services
             Women
             Medical examinations
             Information dissemination operations
             Health resources utilization
             Quality assurance
             Health care planning
             X-ray radiation monitoring
IDENTIFIER:  VA Women Veterans Health National Training Program
             
------------------------------------------------------------------------

We regret that electronic text of GAO Testimony is not available at 
this time. 

See the GAO FAQ - Section 2.0 for printed copy ordering information.
The FAQ is automatically retrieved with all WAIS search results or 
can be obtained by sending e-mail to: [email protected]