Providence VA sets pace for many health treatments

PROTECT AND SERVE: Susan MacKenzie, director of the Providence VA Medical Center, says the center has been able to reduce hospitalizations by 24 percent. / COURTESY PROVIDENCE  VA MEDICAL CENTER
PROTECT AND SERVE: Susan MacKenzie, director of the Providence VA Medical Center, says the center has been able to reduce hospitalizations by 24 percent. / COURTESY PROVIDENCE VA MEDICAL CENTER

Susan Mackenzie took the helm of the Providence VA Medical Center in October 2013, at a time when many combat veterans have returned to the United States from Iraq and Afghanistan with severe emotional and physical challenges, adding to the needs presented by the older veterans of World War II, the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War. The Providence VA center has a budget of $231 million and provides care to 35,000 veterans from Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts.

PBN: What do you see as your greatest challenge in your new position at the Providence VA Medical Center?
MACKENZIE: Our challenge is to continue improving the services we provide to ensure we are meeting [veterans’] needs. I don’t tend to consider issues as challenges – I look at them as opportunities. Health care is changing all the time, and we are constantly adapting to new ways of treating patients, new medications and new regimens. We’re adapting to the different age populations of veterans, from the younger veterans to the aging World War II veterans to the Vietnam era veterans, many of whom initially didn’t seek care from the VA in large numbers, and now they’re doing that.

PBN: What do you see as your most important advantage in your new position in Providence?
MACKENZIE: Our strongest advantage is the dedicated staff, who truly believe in VA’s mission to provide exceptional health care to such a deserving population as Rhode Island’s veterans. Many of our employees are veterans themselves or have a loved one who is a veteran, so they have a personal investment.

PBN: Do you see this as a particularly challenging time for VA health care?
MACKENZIE: Actually, I see this as an exceptional time in VA health care and some great achievements have been made locally to meet the needs of all our returning veterans – those with the medical issues you’ve described, and those with far more subtle challenges. For returning veterans, we hold Post Deployment Health Reassessment Program clinics on drill weekends. Here, the veterans are enrolled in our system and given a complete health assessment. They are set up to begin receiving health care right away. … Once the veteran is enrolled, many of them file a disability claim for compensation for a service-related injury. The Providence VA is a national leader for performing a medical evaluation and processing those claims. We work very closely with the regional Veterans Benefits Administration office to ensure that veterans receive a timely response. The current processing time is under 14 days. We are leaders in providing tele-health care, so patients have minimal travel and in some circumstances can receive care in their homes.

- Advertisement -

PBN: Does Providence stand out in any specific way in health care innovation for veterans?
MACKENZIE: There is astounding research taking place at the Providence VA that will not only improve care for veterans, but will go far in providing huge advancements in medicine to the population as a whole. … For example, two researchers … have demonstrated the ability for humans with long-standing paralysis to use their own neural motor signals to directly control computers and robotic arms through a brain-computer interface.

PBN: Homeless veterans have become a disturbing reality in the U.S., and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is committed to ending veteran homelessness by 2015. How do think this state compares to others? MACKENZIE: Much of the success we have had here in Rhode Island and at the Providence VA is the result of community partnerships with organizations like Operation Stand Down and Veterans Inc. that are the recipients of VA grants to veterans and families to prevent homelessness. It has also come from significant increases in the housing available to homeless veterans though HUD-VASH housing vouchers and grant-per-diem/transitional housing, so we can move them quickly from being homeless on the streets or in shelters to permanent, supportive housing.
Providence has made significant investments in our homeless programs and mental-health staffing with the hiring of additional outreach staff, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists as part of both the VA national homeless initiative and the mental-health enhancement program. We also established the Homeless Veterans Patient Aligned Care Team program, or medical home for homeless veterans, that provides comprehensive, wrap-around care to veterans. This is now a national program based here at the Providence VA with over 50 VA hospitals participating. We have been able to reduce ER visits by 31 percent and hospitalizations by 24 percent while expediting housing placement and retention.

PBN: What are you most looking forward to in your work?
MACKENZIE: I am very excited to create a strategic plan for the next five years, especially taking into consideration the patient-centric movement. Our goal is to effectively deliver quality health care to the veteran population, making it as personalized as possible and using lean methods to stay accountable to the taxpayer. •

INTERVIEW
Susan MacKenzie
POSITION: Director of Providence VA Medical Center
BACKGROUND: MacKenzie has 30 years of experience working with the Department of Veterans Affairs, including several positions in Boston, where she served as assistant chief of the Medical Administration Service and quality management coordinator for accreditation. In 2004 she was appointed associate medical center director for the Boston VA Healthcare System.
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in health science in 1980, master’s degree in public administration in 1986 and Ph.D. in health policy administration 2002, all from Northeastern University
FIRST JOB: Friendly’s in Boston at age 16
RESIDENCE: Milton, Mass.
AGE: 56

No posts to display